Jewel opens up about health crisis and homelessness: ‘I almost died’

Jewel may be a celebrated musician and beloved star now, but that wasn’t always the case for the “Foolish Games” singer. In a recently resurfaced interview, the 51-year-old opened up about her near-death experience as a young adult, and how one person saved her life out of the kindness of their heart.

“I almost died in an emergency room parking lot because they didn’t see me because I didn’t have insurance,” she told PBS’ Tell Me More. “Luckily, a doctor had seen me get turned me away and he went out, and he knocked on my door, and he handed me antibiotics and his card. And he saved my life; it turned out I had sepsis.”

“This was just the most transformative time in my life,” she added. Jewel, whose real name is Jewel Kilcher, experienced homelessness in her youth after distancing herself from her abusive father and absent mother. 

The star struggled to pay rent for an apartment until she rebuked her boss’ advances at work and was fired, forcing her to live in a van for a year. 

“I was paying rent on an apartment month to month; the last $5 was usually paid in change ’cause I was short,” she recalled to Redbook. “I was a hostess at a restaurant, so I was just eating leftover food and taking toilet paper out of the restrooms for my apartment. I wasn’t buying groceries. Toothpaste was really the only thing I bought, because everything was going to rent.”

“Then I had a boss who propositioned me for sex, and when I turned him down, he wouldn’t give me my paycheck. I couldn’t pay that month’s rent, and I got kicked out,” she explained.

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“I didn’t think it was that big a deal. I mean, I was devastated and humiliated, but at the same time I thought, I’ll live in my car, I’ll work out another job, I’ll save up for a couple months, and I’ll get back on my feet.”

“But I just didn’t,” she said. “I kept getting sick, missing work, and couldn’t hold a job down because of that. Then the car I was living in got stolen, and not having an address to put down on a work application is a big problem. It was really frightening.” 

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Thankfully, the musician was discovered, signed to Atlantic Records and went on to become a major star. Jewel got candid about the mental health issues that arose from her experience with homelessness, including intense anxiety and panic attacks. 

© Ron Galella Collection via Getty

“I was homeless for a year when I was 18 – absolutely terrified, having panic attacks, shoplifting,” she said during a town hall event on mental health. “[There were] days I thought I would just pass out. I have passed out from panic attacks, actually. But I kept standing up.”

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She worked to overcome her anxiety through visualization methods. “My anxiety, my tremendous anxiety, my panic attacks – to me, when I saw trees in a storm, the branches didn’t close around the storm and hang onto the wind…That’s how I felt about my thoughts and my feelings. Not every thought and feeling’s a fact. Just because it’s happening in my brain doesn’t mean it’s the truth.

“Learning to let them pass like the weather was a skill that really served me well,” she added.