Jewel Claims Her Mom Stole $100 Million From Her

Jewel accused her mother, Lenedra Kilcher, of embezzling over $100 million from her after her early success. The “You Were Meant For Me” singer, 48, said she didn’t realize what her mother was doing to her finances until she was in her mid-30s and in debt. She also shared how lies shaped her understanding of her family situation.

“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 told Verywell Mind Podcast host 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’s parents Atz Kilcher and Lenedra divorced when she was 8, and she grew up with her father in Alaska. “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,” she told Morin, notes Entertainment Tonight. “I didn’t know that at the time.”

Jewel’s father was also abusive, The Masked Singer winner said, describing him as a “volatile alcoholic” who hit her. She hoped her mom was the opposite. Although Lenedra never hit her, the singer said she “was being abused in another way” when her mother was her manager. She also said her mother was never open to discussing her concerns in a serious way.

“Let’s say when I would show up on her doorstep, she would say, ‘Your mind is so powerful. Our minds are only [tapped], 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,’” she recalled, reports Page Six.

While she felt “loved” then, she soon realized that her mother didn’t want to be by her side. “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.”

This was not the first time Jewel opened up about her mother’s mismanagement. In her 2015 memoir Never Broken – Songs Are Only Half the Story, she wrote about when she learned she was in debt. “I found out that not only was all my money gone, but I was several million dollars in debt,” she wrote. “The same year I came to believe that my mom, who was also my manager, was not the person I thought she was.”

However, she also told the Associated Press she didn’t consider her parents villains. “My mom isn’t a villain,” she said in 2015. “My dad isn’t a villain. People get some things right and people get some things wrong. And the song for me, ‘Family Tree,’ is about looking at that. I think the line is, ‘To take the fruit and choose the seeds you want to scatter into the wind.’”