Singer Jewel Accuses Her Mom Of Embezzling $100 Million From Her
March 22 2023, Published 1:45 p.m. ET
Singer Jewel opened up about her parents and revealed that her mother allegedly "embezzled" a whopping $100 million from her while working as her manager, RadarOnline.com has learned.
Jewel, 48, shared the moment she realized all of her money was gone — and how her mother was able to allegedly dupe her.
The Who Will Save Your Soul singer has been open about her unusual upbringing before. Growing up on a 770-acre homestead in Alaska, the singer has shared her eclectic roots with her audiences through tales of growing up connected to wildlife and away from bustling cities.
Beneath that, though, the singer claimed she didn't realize at the time why her mother, Lenedra, left her family after her parent's divorce when she was 8-years-old.
It was only when she was much older that she was shown her mom's true colors.
"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," Jewel claimed on Monday's episode of the Verywell Mind Podcast with Amy Morin.
"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.
"My mom and dad got divorced when I was 8, and we went to live with my dad," Jewel recalled of her childhood. "Nobody told me it’s because my mom didn’t want to be a mom. She left us, and so my dad took over raising us. I didn’t know that at the time."
The four-time Grammy award winner claimed she had a tough time living with her father, which made her more inclined to trust her mom later in life when her career began to take off. Her mother later became her manager.
The singer added that she remembered feeling "loved" at the time, even though her mother would often not support her needs or concerns. The Never Broken author recalled her mother telling her she had such a "powerful" mind that the singer could "sit and stare" at a lightbulb and control it turning on and off.
"What it actually was was my mom didn’t want to stay there and be with me, and she babysat me by having me watch light bulbs," Jewel said. "So sometimes the appearance of an attached figure isn’t what it seems."
At age 48, Jewel appeared to make amends with both her parent's past — and losing all her money under her mom's watch.
"My mom isn’t a villain. My dad isn’t a villain," Jewel added. "People get some things right and people get some things wrong."