Jewel on Keeping Her Romance With Sean Penn a Secret, Getting Dissed By Rob Lowe, and Teaching Her Son About the Shallow Aspects of Showbiz
Jewel signing a copy of her memoir, ‘Never Broken’ (Getty Images)
Celebrity memoirs are a tricky business, as Jewel can tell you.
The songstress’s tome Never Broken landed her on the New York Times Best Sellers list. In exchange, a secret romance she had with Sean Penn when she was a rising star is now public fodder. While it happened two decades ago, it made major headlines, surprising her a bit.
“There’s really no story to it, which is what’s funny to me,” the 41-year-old singer told Yahoo at the premiere of the documentary Our Journey Home, which she narrated. “I think people find it more shocking that I didn’t want to be public about it at the time. Who would? I didn’t want to be known for who I was dating. I wanted to be known for my thoughts and my writing or not be known."
Sean Penn and Jewel — back when they were a thing (Jewel/Access Hollywood Live)
Penn wasn’t taken aback by Jewel’s decision to go public with their fleeting romance. In advance of her book release, she showed him exactly what she was going to write.
"I did,” she admitted. “I let him know that the book was coming out, let him read it, and let him know what was in it as a courtesy.”
Not being a celebrity writing a book about another celebrity, we were curious if that was a typical occurrence. Did, say, Rob Lowe extend her that same courtesy in 2014 when he criticized a love scene they had as co-stars on the short-lived TV show Lyon’s Den?
“Not particularly,” she replied. “Kara DioGuardi wrote something where [she] and I were involved in a situation with a songwriter and she was like, 'I’m going to write about that’ as a heads-up. But, no, not really. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal that I didn’t kiss Rob Lowe, but apparently he did [laughs].”
Jewel’s Journey
Jewel’s memoir delves into her unusual upbringing, which you may know bits and pieces of. She lived on a homestead in Alaska that had no running water or heat. (A reminder, this wasn’t 1920, it was in the '70s and '80s.) Then, after high school, she drifted to San Diego, where she found herself homeless for a year when she lost her job answering phones. The experience — during which she was so down and out, she’d wash her hair in a Denny’s bathroom and hit up bars with free food at happy hour for meals — stuck with her long after she achieved stardom, which is why she narrated Our Journey Home, which is about families dealing with housing instability.
Jewel at the premiere of the documentary Our Journey Home, which she narrated (ReThink Housing)
“It’s obviously an issue that is close to my heart because there are these stigmas and stereotypes of what we think homelessness is and who is homeless,” said Jewel, who is the ambassador of ReThink, an organization that encourages the public to see the benefits that public housing offers. “We really work hard to try to dispel those myths because a lot of people don’t realize that in America a lot of people are one unexpected illness away or one fender bender away from homelessness. Those things are making families have to make very hard decisions between rent money and food money.”
Having been on the other side, she has dealt with many of those stereotypes.
“One of the most degrading things about being homeless is how people treated you,” Jewel said. “They acted like you were subhuman, you didn’t exist, you didn’t matter. That’s how we treat homeless people. We think that they’re lazy. We think that they’re on drugs. I was a young, able-bodied 18 year old with nothing beyond a high school education… [But] I was a hustler and I had some skills to help me fight apathy and fear. When you don’t, it’s devastating. It’s crippling.”
Jewel’s memoir touches on many facets of her life, including her homelessness. (Getty Images)
She continued, “If you have a stable home, you can dream and you can achieve things. If you don’t, you’re an animal and you’re reduced to surviving — and that is a waste of a human life.”
Her Hopes for Kase
These days Jewel is thriving, not surviving. In addition to the documentary and book she has a new album out, Picking Up the Pieces, which is described as a bookend to her multi-platinum-selling smash hit debut, 1995’s Pieces of You. But that doesn’t mean she’s forgotten her roots. When we ask what she indulges in now that she is in the position to, she doesn’t have a long list.
“I think the main perks are traveling. I can afford plane tickets. That’s an amazing thing to me,” said the singer, who busked her way across the country by train before she was famous. “And doctors. I can find the best doctor, wherever they are, whether my insurance covers it or not. It’s a luxury to this day that I am thankful for.”
Jewel, who filed for divorce from Ty Murray in 2014, is trying to instill that sensibility in their 4-year-old son Kase. It isn’t easy when his parents are famous.
Jewel and her 4-year-old son, Kase, goofing around (Instagram)
“It’s a strange thing to go from how I was raised to raising a child with money and fame,” Jewel admitted. “He’ll come with me on some of my press tours and he wants to be in photographs. I’m like: It doesn’t make you special. Because it looks like to a 4-year-old that it makes you important, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t make you a good person. It doesn’t make you anything. It’s a job. So I hope he doesn’t get caught up in the more shallow aspects of what my career is.”
If anyone can teach him about humility, it’s Jewel.
You can watch Our Journey Home, which is narrated by Jewel, in its entirety — and for free — here.
