Washington [US], May 5 : American singer-songwriter and poet Jewel talked about healing from an abusive childhood and painful divorce through motherhood and mental health advocacy, reported People.
When Jewel was eight years old, her mother, Lenedra Carroll, left the family, and her father, Atz Kilcher (a star on Discovery's Alaska: The Last Frontier), raised her and her two brothers on their 300-acre ranch in Homer, Alaska.
"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," says the star, who previously detailed her father's abuse in her 2015 memoir. "He was in a lot of rage and a lot of yelling."
According to People, in 1993 she moved to San Diego, where she worked at a computer warehouse to pay the bills while pursuing her music career. Her boss fired her after she turned down his advances, and she was left broke and homeless after her car was stolen.
"It was a violent era, but the Hells Angels actually were very protective over me. But there's still violence," recalled Jewel, who suffered from anxiety and panic attacks, kidney problems and agoraphobia (an intense fear of leaving the house alone or of being in crowded places). "It was men in positions of power from TV networks to record labels, and women faced it every day."
The harassment only worsened when her music career began taking off, and today she throws her support behind younger female artists to protect them against the abuse she endured.
Jewel met her ex-boyfriend Sean Penn in 1995, the same year that her debut album 'Pieces of You' was published. She piqued the actor's interest with her debut performance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien.
Despite being so new in the business, Jewel knew she wanted to keep the relationship under wraps.
"Even when I was dating Sean really early on, nobody knew I was dating him. I wouldn't do a red carpet with him. I was just very prideful," she said. "I wasn't famous and my album was flopping, like failing spectacularly. I remember going to the Venice Film Festival with him, and I could have done the red carpet and received a lot of media attention."
"People would've said, 'Who is this girl?' and I could have plugged my album. But I'd rather be unknown the rest of my life than have that be the way the world was introduced to me," she shared. "I don't need fame that badly. I need to be fulfilled. I need to be happy. I need to be a songwriter. I wasn't thirsty in that way."
She took years off following her critically acclaimed 1998 album 'Spirit', which peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard charts. Stepping away at the time was an "act of power," she said now.
"I had to learn how to handle the male ego and turn them down in a way that didn't cost me in the workplace. It's awful. Nobody should have to learn that, and sometimes it didn't work," she added.
A year later, she met rodeo star Ty Murray, and after nearly ten years together, they married in the Bahamas. The pair announced their divorce in July 2014, and the singer claims she went into a deep depression while adjusting to being a single mother to their 12-year-old son Kase.
"The divorce wasn't easy. Choosing not to work for seven years wasn't easy. Choosing to build something else other than music wasn't easy. Insisting that I had to change and grow so I could be the most available mom, those were all things that I lived privately, and this was a way of honouring myself too," Jewel said. "I'm a lot more present now. I'm a present mom, which I worked hard on. It wasn't easy in the beginning to be present. Divorces... you have so much grief, and it's hard. Not wanting to let go of that dream kept me in a marriage much longer than I should have."
She detailed her heartbreak on the song "Love Used to Be" (off her twelfth studio album Picking Up the Pieces). "It's a funeral song," she added, admitting that she cries every time she sings it.
Over the years Jewel sought counseling and studied wellness. She began to meditate and journal, chronicling her sorrow.
After her divorce, Jewel started seeing a therapist, and this time it worked. Nonetheless, she felt uninspired and discouraged by life. So she did what she knew best: make changes for herself.
Her new, self-curated 90-minute immersive art display (available to the public from May 4 to July 28) symbolises the progress and calm she has discovered.
"For me, mental health and emotional well-being is a side effect of our three spheres working in harmony. And suffering is a side effect if they aren't," said the singer, who's been a staunch advocate for mental wellness.
"I'm more inspired now than I've ever been in my life. The most since I was like 19 or 20 years old," she said.
Talking about the rumours she's in a relationship with Kevin Costner, she said, "I found love, and I'm not talking about Kevin's. I'm so happy, irrelevant of a man. It has nothing to do with being in a relationship or not being in one."
"I'm just happy," she emphasized. The love she's willing to share is the one she's found within herself -- one she's been searching for her whole life. "I'm good," she shared, reported People.