Jewel claims that her now-estranged mother stole millions upon millions of dollars from her as her career skyrocketed.
On the "Verywell Mind" podcast, the singer opened up about her financial struggles and the huge debt with which she was saddled after her mom's alleged embezzlement.
"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 said. "And then as I started investigating the truth about what my mom had told me in my life versus what was true, I had realized that pretty much everything I formed my reality on was fiction."
By the time she was 34, the singer-songwriter was deeply in debt.
"I realized I'm $3 million in debt, realize my mom stole it, realize everything I thought my mom was, isn't what she was, [it is a] very difficult psychological thing to come to terms with," she said, according to Us Weekly.
Jewel never gave a timeline detailing when exactly the alleged embezzlement took place.
According to reports, Jewel and her mother, Leandra Carroll, have been estranged since the early 2000s. The two, however, weren't always on the outs. In fact, Leandra previously served as Jewel's business manager.
"I mean, it's a complex issue, but my mom used to [be] this heroic figure. My mom and dad got divorced when I was 8, and we went to live with my dad," Jewel said. "Nobody told me it's because my mom didn't want to be a mom."
The "You Were Meant for Me" singer recalls hitchhiking hundreds of miles to see her mom.
"She was the opposite of my dad. My dad was this volatile alcoholic that hit me, very easy to identify [as a] 'bad guy.' My mom seemed like the opposite. She was calm, she was soft, she never yelled, obviously never hit me. I didn't realize I was being abused in another way at the time," she said. "Looking back, what was actually happening is my mom, 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.' That is such an abusive, effed up thing to say, but I felt so loved."
"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."