Jewel claims her mother, Lenedra Carroll, stole over $100 million from her over the course of her career.
Recently appearing on the Verywell Mind podcast, Jewel said she wasn’t aware of her mother’s alleged misdeeds until she was older. Carroll once served as Jewel’s manager and oversaw her finances.
Jewel was about 22 when she released her breakout hit “You Were Meant For Me” off her debut album, Pieces of You. In the years since, Jewel has sold tens of millions of albums — but despite her success, she discovered about a decade later that she was in debt.
“I didn’t really realize what my mom was until I was 30-something… I woke up and realized she embezzled all of my money, over $100 million,” the singer claimed, saying she had to reckon with what her mother told her and what the truth actually was.
“I had realized that pretty much everything I formed my reality on was fiction,” she said.
“Thirty-four years old, realize I’m $3 million in debt, realize my mom stole it, realize everything I thought my mom was, isn’t what she was — very difficult psychological thing to come to terms with,” Jewel continued.
That led to her discovering even more uncomfortable truths about her childhood that she needed to work through.
The singer noted, “Having to go back as a 34-year-old and rework your psyche was not fun.” She is thankful she had the resources to do the work and has since dedicated her platform to advocating for mental health.
Jewel recently co-founded Innerworld, a mental health platform staged in the metaverse.
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