Singer Jewel Opens Up About Dark Childhood Dealing With Alcoholic, Abusive Father

Jewel made headlines a few weeks back when singing sensation Olivia Rodrigo invited her up on stage during her Madison Square Garden leg of the Guts world tour, to belt out her 1995 hit You Were Meant For Me. 90s was a time when Jewel was peaking in her career, churning out albums shooting up the Billboard charts. However, her journey in showbiz at the time, stood shrouded in the shadows of her dark childhood.

Jewel opens up about her abusive childhood

In an exclusive chat with People, Jewel opened up about how she was raised in a deeply traditional Mormon family. While that could have made for a quaint atmosphere, her mother leaving the family when Jewel was all of 8 years old, brought out a different side to her father, who took to alcohol, and a whole lot of rage. 

She said, "I grew up in a very traditional Mormon family. But everything changed when my mom left. My dad started drinking and being physically abusive, so like hitting us, and that's what caused me to move out...He was in a lot of rage and a lot of yelling."

Jewel has reconciled with her father

In a bid to escape the abusive environment, Jewel started working at the age of 15 and was soon able to move out of her family's homestead. Moving away did her a world of good, but Jewel was also determined to not be sour over her relationship with her father, despite all that she endured. Her father himself being the product of an abusive home in addition to being a Vietnam war veteran, was dealing with his own ordeals of anxiety and PTSD, self-soothing the pain with alcohol.

In a 2020 interview with People, Jewel had shared, "My dad had really bad PTSD but those words weren't really known at the time. He tried to drink to handle the anxiety, and he became abusive...I was determined to heal: to let go, move on and figure out how I could be the one who changed those habits."