SPEEDWAY, INDIANA: The love life of Pop and Country music star Jewel, who recently performed ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and offended people, has been under wraps for years. However, she once spoke about her romance with Sean Penn and said that she found him “charming, witty, and bright.”
In her memoir, ‘Never Broken: Songs Are Only Half the Story', Jewel spoke about how she caught Penn’s attention with her first TV break on 'Late Night with Conan O’Brien' in 1995. "One day my dad came to find me, saying, ‘Jewel, you must be getting some kooky fans out there in the Lower 48. Some guy just prank-called and said he was Sean Penn,'" she recalled, as per People.
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Sean Penn was a 'fantastic flirt'
Penn reportedly called back again and this time convinced Jewel's father, Atz Kilcher, who is now a star on Discovery’s 'Alaska: The Last Frontier', to put her on the phone. She wrote in her memoir, “The voice was unmistakably Sean Penn’s. He had seen me on Conan and was working on a movie he’d written called 'The Crossing Guard'. He wanted me to compose a song for it. I told him I would and he said he would meet me anywhere to screen the movie, I could name the day. I gave him my cell number and figured I would never hear from him again.”
Jewel and Penn met and the singer found him “charming, witty, and bright.” She said that their “instant verbal sparring characterized our friendship for the next year," adding that he was a “fantastic flirt.” She further said, as stated by Billboard, "But I was no fool and knew I was most likely a trifle to him. I intended to give him no such conquest. I put that man through his paces and he took it in stride. He began to court me in earnest, following me around on tour, acting as my de facto roadie…. I moved very slowly with him but he was a persistent and inventive suitor, and I enjoyed it immensely. I enjoyed Sean and would eventually fall in love,” she wrote.
During their time together, he introduced her to Roman Polanski, Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty. She said, “He enjoyed putting me in situations that brought out the best in me and he never ridiculed what was still so half-wild and messy about me.” However, they broke up the same year with Penn reconciling with Robin Wright, with whom he shares two children, Dylan and and Hopper.
Jewel marries cowboy Ty Murray
Prior to Penn, Jewel was in a brief relationship with former soap actor Christopher Douglas, states Ranker. There were also rumors Jewel had a fling with Jean-Claude Van Damme but she denied it. She eventually got married to cowboy Ty Murray in 2008 and gave birth to their son, Kase, in 2011. They filed for divorce in 2014.
Speaking to People in 2016, Jewel said, "My son comes with me on tour. But I changed how I tour, so I just tour Thursday, Friday and Saturday, sometimes Sunday. We go out on weekends, and that way he's able to stay in school. I have a year to figure out a job where I'm going to be more stable. I work very hard at making sure I'm putting my son at the forefront and not myself."
Who is she currently dating?
Jewel has been dating NFL star Charlie Whitehurst since 2015. At that time, she told People, "We've been together almost a year. I was very slow about going public. We're not people to go out on 'the scene.'" She told the People in 2016, "Charlie and I are very adventurous, so we travel all over the world together and do a lot of fun things, but it kind of is a luxury just being home and getting to hang out."