SPEEDWAY, INDIANA: Singer-songwriter Jewel, 49, recently made news after being called out for singing her own rendition of the American national anthem, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner', at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, May 28. As the singer slightly altered the nearly 200-year-old song, some social media users dubbed the change as “disrespectful” and said she “butchered” the track.
The ‘Pieces of You’ creator, who has sold over 30 million albums worldwide, made headlines for several reasons throughout her life, including the times she opened up about the years of abuse she suffered at the hands of her own parents during her childhood. Jewel has long been vocal about her struggles and how she worked towards surviving her traumatic past to emerge as a Grammy-nominated pop and country star. Let’s take a look at the singer’s past life before she entered the world of music.
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‘He became abusive’
Jewel was born to parents, Atz Kilcher, 75, a Vietnam war veteran and star of the reality show ‘Alaska: The Last Frontier', and Lenedra Carroll, 67, in Utah. After her birth, her parents moved the singer and her older brother, Shane, to Alaska, where they lived on a large homestead with no electricity or plumbing. During an appearance on the ‘Verywell Mind’ podcast, Jewel revealed her parents separated when she was just eight years old.
“My mom and dad got divorced when I was eight, and we went to live with my dad,” she shared. “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 singer mentioned. Speaking to People in a 2020 interview she revealed, “My dad had really bad PTSD [from serving in the Vietnam war], but those words weren't really known at the time. He tried to drink to handle the anxiety, and he became abusive.”
The singer later learned that her father repeated his behavior from the abuse he suffered during his own childhood. “As much as we have a genetic inheritance, we have an emotional inheritance. My dad was also raised in a wildly abusive home. I had a way better go of it than he did when he was young, but it still wasn't good,” Jewel shared. The musician decided to leave her family's homestead at age 15 after failing to put up with the abuse and attempted to move into a cabin of her own.
“I started paying rent and working a couple jobs in town, hitchhiking to work,” she told the outlet. “It felt good. My dad and I had a difficult relationship, and I thought, ‘I could live in a cabin by myself or I could live in a cabin with a guy that isn't that nice to me. So, why not go live in a cabin by myself?’”
Jewel was sexually harassed at 8
Jewel reportedly began performing at an early age as while singing in roadhouses and taverns with her father to earn money. “I was bar singing as an eight year old. I was around predators, I had a very scary life. I had a very terrifying life. And I had a life where adults weren't safe people, being in connection to people wasn't safe,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2015.
“I’ve had men hitting on me, sadly, since I was really young. At 8, I had men putting dimes in my hands saying, ‘Call me. It’d be so great to f*** when you’re older.’ And just horrible stuff,” the singer shared. However, she said that the traumatic experiences of her childhood helped her to prepare for the sexual harassment she would later face and stand against in the music industry.
Jewel was reportedly homeless when she signed a deal with Atlantic Records at 18. She revealed that when she began her career by singing in bars and coffee shops in San Diego, her boss at the time fired her for refusing to have sex with him. She failed to pay rent after losing her job and lived out of her car until it was stolen, which was later stolen. “I’ve never been more propositioned by businessmen in my life. It was almost like they were sharks that could smell blood, like of vulnerability,” she told the publication.
“I’d go back to my car, writing songs, and men would literally come up and proposition me. They would be like, ‘Hey, do you need rent money?’ you know and things like that. It was pretty wild. I never took anybody up on it, but it was interesting to see this side of men that basically would prey on somebody vulnerable,” Jewel added. She reiterated the dire situation during her more recent interview with People and said, “I ended up homeless because I wouldn't have sex with a boss. I started living in my car because my boss wouldn't give me my paycheck. Then my car got stolen.”
The singer also revealed how she even had to turn to shoplifting to survive at one point of time. “One day, I was shoving this dress down my baggy Levi 501 jeans and thought, ‘I'm going to end up in jail or dead.’ Then I remembered this quote by Buddha: ‘Happiness does not depend on what you have or who you are. It solely relies on what you think.’ I thought, maybe I could turn my life around one thought at a time,” Jewel recalled.
‘I was being abused in another way’
While Jewel initially believed that her mother cared more about her than her father, the country star soon realized that she was suffering another form of abuse at the hands of her mother. “My dad was this volatile alcoholic that hit me, very easy to identify ‘bad guy.’ My mom seemed like the opposite,” she told the ‘Verywell Mind’ podcast. “She was calm, she was soft, she never yelled, obviously never hit me. And I didn't realize I was being abused in another way at the time,” Jewel shared.
The singer recalled that when she went to her mother for support after being abused by her father, Lenedra would find new ways to ignore Jewel. “Let's say when I would show up on her doorstep, she would say, ‘Your mind is so powerful. Our minds are only tap, we use like 10% of our brain power. Our minds are so powerful and I think you, Jewel, are so powerful that I think you could sit here and stare at this light bulb and you might be able to get it to turn off with your mind,’” the ‘Who Will Save Your Soul’ singer shared.
“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. So sometimes the appearance of an attached figure isn't what it seems,” she revealed. Later in life, the musician’s mother also embezzled her money. Jewel remained close to her mother even when she achieved success. The latter even had access to the singer’s finances.
“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 shared. “34 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,” she admitted.
Jewel eventually reconciled with her father
Despite suffering abuse throughout her childhood, Jewel reconciled with her father later in life. “I was determined to heal: to let go, move on and figure out how I could be the one who changed those habits,” she told People. “He got sober and did this amazing inner work,” she shared. “It's a profound transformation. We have a really authentic, great relationship now, but it's because he did his work, and I did my work,” the singer concluded.
