This story seems like it was tailor made for a memoir. Indeed, I wondered if Jewel would spill some tea like this in her upcoming memoir, Never Broken: Songs Are Only Half the Story. The book is out now, and People has some new excerpts that dish on Jewel’s relationship with Sean Penn. I alluded to this about a week ago when discussing Jewel’s revelation that men sexually harassed her at age 8.
Penn has nothing to do with that story, but there were always rumors that they were romantic together. Publicly, he’s sort of credited for discovering her, which sucks. Jewel says she actually didn’t hear from him until after she performed on Late Night with Conan O’Brien in 1995. He pursued her during one of his breaks with Robin Wright (before they were married). Jewel says she loved him “for his mind,” which pleased Sean immensely:
Sean called her up: “One day my dad came to find me, saying, ‘Jewel, you must be getting some kooky fans out there in the Lower 48. Some guy just prank-called and said he was Sean Penn.”
She called him back: “The voice was unmistakably Sean Penn’s. He had seen me on Conan and was working on a movie he’d written called The Crossing Guard. He wanted me to compose a song for it. I told him I would and he said he would meet me anywhere to screen the movie, I could name the day. I gave him my cell number and figured I would never hear from him again.”
He was “a fantastic flirt: “He began to court me in earnest, following me around on tour, acting as my de facto roadie.” The majority of their relationship “wasn’t spent at Hollywood parties, but on the road,” making it easy for her to keep it under wraps. “I was determined not to be ‘discovered’ because I was dating someone in the public eye,” Jewel writes. After she explained this to him and said she “liked his mind,” Penn said it “would be impossible not to fall in love with me.”
He introduced her to people: “He enjoyed putting me in situations that brought out the best in me, and he never ridiculed what was still so half-wild and messy about me.”
[From People]
Does it seem a little bit “off” that she’s dishing on Sean now, after all these years? I feel like she really wants to sell some books, so she’s adding something slightly controversial. At least waiting until now means Jewel isn’t dishing while he’s still married to Robin. That would be pretty rude and sketchy. Anyway, now we know that they were romantic together. Jewel says she took pains to never walk a red carpet with Sean because she didn’t want people to think she slept her way to the top. Makes sense, and her career has lasted for decades, so she would have succeeded with or without him.
Photos courtesy of WENN
Sean Penn = barf
Some scoop on Jewel: She lived/lives (not sure since her divorce) in Stephenville, TX which is a little town a an hour and a halfish outside of dfw. My friend grew up there and her family still lives there. Jewel and her ex husband were huge jerks and treated everyone in the city like crap. If you walked by her in a store she’d snap, “don’t take my picture!” Her ex husband always talked down to people and was very standoffish with everyone.
My friends brother is on the volunteer fire department. When she was pregnant she was in that wreck where the fire truck hit her. That wasn’t my friends brother but the brother was the first person on the scene and he asked her if she was ok and how she was feeling. She was really rude to him and not nice at all.
To be fair, she was pregnant and got hit by a fire truck. I probably wouldn’t be in the best mood either..
I’m with @Missy. If a firetruck — something that is supposed to be there for our safety — hit my car while I was pregnant, I would be yanking heads off bodies.
I am from Stephenville. I worked as a waitress at a local place and they came in with several people and a small child once. They stayed a very long time, let the kid make the hugest mess, were VERY rude, and left $0 tip.
@lou
I wonder if they ever ate at Jake and Dorothy’s? Is it still there? I always think of their Chicken Fried Steak and the jukeboxes on the tables.
Texas people! I love(d?) Jake and Dorothy’s! Hard 8 BBQ isn’t bad either. Haven’t been to S’ville in a while. And now I’m hungry. Good bad diners are non existent where I am. Freakin’ college town. But god knows I can find a black bean vegan burger and artisan pizza within walking distance. boo.
Back on topic: Hasn’t it been a common rumor that she’s a jerk and a fake? Some one else who went to school with her in Alaska was saying that her family background a circumstances (the homelessness part) was crap. They said something like “They were hippies, not homeless.”
Wow, that’s disappointing to hear. She always seemed to come across as “sweet” in interviews. You would think she would be somewhat humble since she didn’t always have the most charmed life. Guess nothing should surprise me…
He is just so gross.
“I gave him my cell number”
In 1994/5? I mean, I remember the decade well. That seems pretty early for someone to be talking about a cell and not an in-car mobile device, unless she’s using them interchangeably.
I had a cell phone in 1994. It was one of thos big, fat flip phone. I was in college and it was mainly to use for emergencies, especially since no one else used them! My dad was a bit of a worrier.
Huh, I only remember them being in cars at that point (since they were generally so bulky). Oh well.
I agree. I only remember them in cars at that time.
I had one as well in ’94
It was grey and flipped open and you had to pull out a flimsy black antenna.
It was kinda like a walkie-talkie.
I had one in 1994. It was big and bulky…and the best cell phone I ever had. That thing could take a beating and the reception was good for the time. Not gonna lie that I miss that thing.
Orange targeted us university students with free cell phones in 94. They weren’t 80s bulky, but they were pretty big compared to what you see nowadays. Mine was a motorola flip phone with an antenna. (not star tack or banana slides that you see in THE MATRIX). Orange made a killing by targeting students. I think at the time the big mobile company was one 2 one or Mercury.
I had the same phone! I was a junior in high school and my dad wanted to keep tabs on me. As the mother of a daughter, I get it now. It was embarrassing though because no one else had a phone back then.
yep. I had a Motorola flip phone. It wasn’t that huge…it was a brick but a small brick. I found a commercial for them on youtube: https://youtu.be/CP07YQodvCs
A lot of people had cells by 1995, especially people in entertainment I’m sure.
I had a flip phone cell in 1995. You know, the bottom half flipped out and you had to pull the antenna up to use it. But they were fairly common where I was from.
People had cell phones from about the mid-80’s. By 93-94 they were growing pretty popular.
Everyone I knew in the early 90’s had a cell phone. I’d imagine a different circle at that time may not have even known what a cell phone was. But they were definitely abundant in some places/professions.
I got my first cell phone in late 94 because I was pregnant and my husband wanted to make sure I could get in touch with him at all times. Most people I knew already had them as early as 92-93
In the 90s I remember everyone had a pager/beeper. No one had cell phones yet. I out of 100 may have had a huge, cumbersome car phone lol.
In 1996 I had a bag phone in my car. I traveled for my job and my husband got it for me so we’d both feel safer about me traveling alone. Everytime I watch “Sixteen Candles” and see Jake’s dad’s car with the phone between the seats, I am taken back to my bag phone days.
Yeah, my mom had a car/bag phone then. A couple years later everyone had pagers.
I remember my dad had one for business in the very early 90’s or even late 80’s. It was mostly a car phone, but you could put it in this (huge) bag and carry it as a cell phone for a few hours before the battery would die on it.
I change my phone every two years and I’ve had 10+ different cell phones. My first phone was a really cute little Ericsson flip phone, so phones here in the UK were quite small by the early 90’s.
Paging Zach Morris…
People had cell phones, but wasn’t she homeless? How much did a cell phone cost in 1994?
I third only remembering them in cars because you actually *had* to have that swirly black antenna to get reception. Plus, she said her dad came to get her, implying SP tracked her down on her ranch in Alaska, 20 years later there is *still* no reception there.
I lived in an upper middle class Silicon Valey suburb, graduated HS in 1998, had a pager the hole time. I was one of the only ones with a pager, too.
The Mr had a cellphone for work back then. It was the size of a shoebox and heavy as anything but he was always on it.
Well, the movie Clueless came out in 1995, and Cher and Dionne were often on the cell phone to each other.
I find this girl so intriguing. Amongst all the famewhores and Hollyweirdos she seems sweet, humble, modest and genuine.
Not according to eye witness accounts unfortunately!
I really don’t know who she is or any of her songs. Is she a generational thing or was she one of those who never crossed over from whatever genre? Was she really big enough to justify a book deal, because peddling a short lived ex relationship is usually indicative of not having lived a memoir worthy life.
Jewel was a pretty big singer-songwriter in the mid-nineties. Her album, “Pieces of You” is one of the best-selling debut albums of all time.
Had to google her. Never heard of her but then I find country music so unremarkable that perhaps I have heard her songs and forgotten. Jeez, Sean Penn dated a country music princess? I was certainly not expecting that.
Naya, she was not a country princess or a country singer. She was a folksy singer/songwriter in the 90’s. But her music was played on all the pop stations. You should check out some of her older music.
The song “You Were Meant For Me” was HUGE.
@MrsB My bad. I figured that since her wiki page says that she debuted on country music charts, that she was a country singer who went broad into pop rock. Taylor Swifts predecessor if you will.
@Illyra I just found “you were meant for me” and yes I definitely have heard it before. Its one of those awfully terrible ear worm songs, which of course explains why she was big. What the hell happened to this career.
Sean Penn directed the video for You Were Meant for Me.
And ‘Foolish Games’ was a big deal as well. Amazing song, the lyrics are incredible IMO. I die to think that could have maybe been written about Sean Penn. Like..that’s actually offensive if that’s the case. ETA: Just reread the lyrics. It has to be about him. This is devastating. No no no, Jewel from the 90s. Should have realized he’s a mean person to women 🙁
I have to disagree. She was a flash in the pan – two successful albums while she blathered about being homeless to get where she was and never succumbing to the pressures of the music biz because she was a real singer/songwriter – folk music. She then, of course, made a somewhat pop album which stunk big-time and shattered all the “I’ll never sell out to pop music” and she kind of fell off the grid. Then she tried to get into country music and was on The Voice for a season or two. She dissed alot of young people for not having a great voice, which is beyond ironic because like Abdul and JLo, she does not have a good voice, let alone a great voice – she’s a stylist whose style fell by the wayside when relativity was threatened. Obviously, I don’t care for her. She’s stuck on herself and seriously, not all that.
I think she has a good voice, and a very unique one at that. I saw her live. It was just her and a guitar. She killed it. Most are so auto tuned and processed now they sound like utter $hite on a stick live. Add to that that she writes her own music. Again, a rarity nowadays.
@Ab Fab–I saw her at Lilith Fair back in the day and she was indeed fantastic live. Also, at the end of her set she stood up there with no instrument and YODELED! I’ll never forget that, LOL.
I thought she was a great performer back in the day. She’d do a lot of acoustic stuff, and she’d change the melody in little ways to really make the song have emotional sincerity. She was like a vocal actress in her singing, a storyteller. Plus, at the age I was and the way she wrote her “slice of life” songs, it really resonated with my dramatic teen feelings. 😉
Not a Taylor Swift predecessor by any means. More like a Jessica Simpson one–my pop career has flopped and it’s time to try country, I guess. One of the most loyal and easy to win over audiences–that’s from one of my radio teachers who worked at a country station.
“Who Will Save Your Soul” is the hit I always think of. “You Were Meant for Me” was not directed by Sean Penn, not sure where you got that, KAI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Were_Meant_for_Me_(Jewel_song)
She was a folky pop singer, big in “alternative” circles too, to some extent. I don’t think country was an afterthought for her, but was always part of her sounds and ended up being where she stuck around. As sills noted, yodeling was part of her thing from the beginning. What a novelty!
Pieces of You is the only song of hers I know. Never really cared for her.
I guess it is a generational thing. She was a huge mainstream star in the 90s.
She was huge in the 90s and had 2 really big albums then faded into obscurity. For that couple of years she was just as ubiquitous as Taylor Swift, she even wrote a book of poetry which in my circle of friends was mocked relentlessly. Her songs were infectious and poppy and really cheesy , but she really tried to style herself as an artist (said with an inflection) in the mold of Joni Mitchell.
This whole thread makes me feel a hundred years old!
Mrs. Darcy, I hear you.
*Ties hair into scrunchie, puts on teen-angst choker*
DoooooooOOOOo yooooOOOuuUu love me? Lhiiiiiiiiiiiiike Eeeeeeeeeeeeeye love you?
Yes @MrsDarcy this thread has just sent me down a huge rabbit hole. I was more of a ‘Foolish Games’ and ‘Who will save your soul?’ fan, because all the ANGST.
Brb, off to listen to some Verve Pipe and freshman now so I can remind myself some more what a dramatic middle/high schooler I was. 😉
Oh, @Mrsb… Ther Verve Pipe… “We were only fressshmen…
Gah, I feel so ancient.
The live version of we were only freshman is amazing!
Add me to the crowd of olds! BRB, firing up the Jewel on Rdio to be transported to my endlessly awkward early teens.
Wow, I just read some of her poetry and it’s really unbelievably bad.
I think I’ve found my people on this thread! The choker comment, Verve Pipe, ah memories!
She was huge… for a while. As evidenced by the untold number of used copies of Pieces of You my local Hastings (video/CD store). Like, hundreds. (Maybe?) It was hilarious.
What is it about him that makes women throw themselves at his feet? Good actor but vile man.
So, here’s the thing. I dated a ‘Sean’, with anger issues, who looks a lot like this guy (without the old ham face). He wasn’t overly attractive, but women did seem to flock to him. We all ran away screaming, in the end, but I never dated another Sean and I will advise my daughters of their devilry.
Im a name person too. Never had good experiences with Micheals.
Charism? Sex is good? Fame? All?
I’m guessing he must have either a very powerful charisma or be really great in the sack, because he’s never been especially good-looking.
fame is a huge thing for a lot of women. so many unattractive men get tons of women with merely being famous. someone above said she comes from a little town that will make it even more alluring to meet someone who made it in Hollywood.
Let’s call it The Ham Factor.
Not to be confused with the Hamm Factor!
Must be something we the peasants do not know because he attracts some of the most beautiful/powerful women in the business and none really have come out and said anything negative in a full blown sense.
I would love to know what ScarJoScarJo and Charlize have to say
Some women are drawn to abusive men subconsciously. And like most abusers, he’s super attentive and that’s gets addicting. And even though he is small in stature, Penn has always been a bit of a brawler and that makes some women feel protected – like he’s their body guard who wont’ take any sh!t or allow his woman to be disrespected…except by him.
Oh come on, ladies. Its not money or fame. His exes have all dated obscure celebrities or non Hollywooders. Think Robin Wright, Carjo and even Madonna. And Charlize has been a stunning A lister for almost two decades and yet he is the most high profile guy she has dated.
Its his masculinity. Think about it, female entertainers are always complaining that the industry guys arent traditionally “manly”. Alphas like Tom Cruise use botox. Clooney is frantically googling himself because heaven forbid somebody not like him. And then you have emo artistes like Depp. From a distance the handsome guy who constantly mines his emotions, and fixates on his appearance and likeabilty, may seem like a catch but imagine living with that. Sean Penns appeal is probably that he doesn’t give a sh*t what he looks like or what people think and doesn’t sob at the drop of a pin. He is the traditionally masculine man in a sea of metrosexuals and femme dudes. (He is also an abusive dbag but that’s not the part that reels them in, its the unhappy surprise he springs on them later in the game)
Good explanation. I could buy it.
That about sums it up. I was going to write something similar.
Good insight, this makes sense.
I like this analysis! Now, is there any manly man in hollywood who is NOT a douchebag they can go for instead? Please, internet, name this guy. I’m coming up empty after mentally scratching out Channing Tatum (he dances too well), Ryan Reynolds (metro to the max), Miles Teller (straight-up douchebag), Tom Hardy (looks the part but sexually ambiguous in the best way).
Sean doesn’t just get lots of women, he has tons of friends all over the industry. We see the grump in public but that is just his Brando thing. He knows how to charm people he wants to charm.
I think his appeal is he is so passionate he probably makes women feel more loved than they have ever felt in their life when things are good. I think a reason the self-obsessed Madonna still has a soft spot for him is because probably no other man she has been with was as obsessed with her as he was when he was in love with her. With Charlize Theron he melted down his massive gun collection for her and called her the love of his life. When he loves, he loves hard. That combined with the bad boy thing is part of his appeal.
I remember when she first had her massive hit/album. Her songs were SOOO annoying and her singing style is best described as nasal. But she really was a phenomenon in the ’90s, and she’s lucky she was before the MP3 era. Aside, she’s barely aged. She looks great.
Can’t stand her music and her songs still get stuck in my head and stay for days on end. That being said, I’ve always liked her but find her taste in Sean Penn inexplicable.
Yup. Annoying and catchy songs but she is one GORGEOUS woman. And although I’m not a huge fan of her music, I do think she’s quite talented.
No idea what she sees in HamFace.
It was 20 years ago. Like most people he looked different back then.
Just reading this article got that annoying song ‘am I standing still’ stuck in my head.
Blurgh
she was a bit precious for me.
In before ” who will save your soul if you don’t save your own?” jokes
btw Sean Penn directed one of music videos from Pieces of you, Jewel used to deny they dated but it’s not really a secret relationship.
Her career has lasted decades…Really? I know her just as a one hit wonder and then she struggled for years to keep being on the spotlight, unsuccessfully. And this all-tell book confirms that she’s pretty much desperate. We all know that when a “star” ,or so-called-one, has nothing more going on the biography book is kind of the last place where they can milk some money from. And telling this story is just cringeworthy: there’s nothing to brag about being a quick fling to a guy that as soon as you open your legs to him, came back to the mother of his children, his longtime girlfriend, and married her. She comes out like an idiot who’s been just used by Penn.
Actually she had way more than one hit in the 90s, but have to disagree on her taste in men…Sean Penn? No. Just no.
1/ she was huge in 90’s
2/ he didn’t use her.They were single and adult persons who had a short fling during less one year.He even helped her in her job ( he did one of her videos)
3/ some guys are only good for fling.They have not the material to be a serious boyfriend or a good husband or a good father.Some relations don’t make to last
So, she kept their relationship under wraps because she didn’t want people to think she slept her way to the top, but he helped her in the industry, produced her music video, blah blah blah, then they parted ways. Am I the only one seeing the denial there?
I feel she’s too young to be writing a memoir. I figure you do that when you’re in your 70s.
I don’t think of her career as having lasted decades either. Maybe because she’s not particularly old yet? I mean, I know she’s been around for awhile but she came out a few years before N’Sync, and I don’t think of Justin Timberlake has having been around for decades, even though maybe he has. While she was a “thing” in the 90s and people noted her resemblance to Renee Zellwegger, I think her career trajectory has been up and down. I don’t think it’s smooth and steady like Taylor Swift’s. Then again I think I assumed she didn’t covet fame much. But now I realize I was wrong since she’s putting out a memoir. I don’t get it…I wouldn’t want anyone to know I had a thing with Sean Penn. That sort of thing seems too embarrassing to admit now. I know a lot of beautiful women have gotten with him, but it still seems embarrassing to me.
And therein lies the desperacy in writing memoires – anything to get people talking.
And I expected more from her. Whatever, she has nothing to do with my expectations.
The whole interview seemed like I was reading a mills and boon / harlequin romance book.
I think Sean can be charming as hell which is why women fall for him. But after knowing his true abusive personality they run as fast as they can.
I guess she needs the money.
Sounds like it. She comes across as a little bit desperate…but I was never a fan so I might be biased.
Back before Jewel was famous pretentious Sean thought she was a lot deeper and more special as a musician than she was. He thought she was the female Bob Dylan, so he wanted to get with her badly. Now we know she is no female Bob Dylan, but at the time that is what Sean thought. He probably thought her pop sell out phase was horrible.
in 94, I still had a typewriter on my home desk! I remember pagers, not cell phones. but surely, people had them.
It’s really amazing how quickly personal computers took off.
It’s been a revolutionary 25yrs as far as personal technology.
Zach Morris had a cell phone. A huge one. I think I knew what a cell phone was because of him….I can’t even remember how I came to know what one was, but I use him as my point of reference.
The bit where he told her it would be impossible not to fall in love with her? Classic Casenova statement. He’s obviously a natural seductor. Which usually means the woman mean nothing, the conquest means everything. Exactly what we’d expect from Sean Penn.
Agree. When I saw the ScarJo pics with him (where her foot is rubbing his man area)..I knew this had to be the case. And ew!
But how ridiculous are these women who would beleive any statement like that from a man who’d already been with Madonna and Robin Wright? As if he never said those same things to them? I can’t chalk it up to naivete` – more like self-importance/dillusions of grandeur.
Clever way to word it too. When you look at it, he’s actually saying nothing of any meaning. But it’s meant to sounds like he is saying something very meaningful.
botox casualty.
Thank you. I wouldn’t have recognized who was in the picture without the header showing her name.
I actually remember reading some gossip about them back in the ’90s. He took her to some premiere or party and she carried her guitar on her back like an accessory. I’m sure at the time he thought that was very profound. I just remember rolling my eyes.
She’s talked about him before. She talked about him on Howard Stern a few years ago. This old news.
I understand that decent contouring will make your boobs appear bigger. However what is with this trend lately to make it grossly obvious there is makeup in the boob gap? Is it just that cameras are better than it used to be so its harder to hide? The lighting? Either way I wish it would stop.
getting a bit of a Gwynnie P vibe. ‘I wont say how awesome I am but my friends all say I’m awesome, its impossible not to fall in love with me’. Yawn……
Thank you! And deep. I’m so deep….you couldn’t possibly relate.
I find her utterly insufferable. Her carefully crafted ‘hippie-folkie-emo-poet-rootsy’ persona grates. She’s as big a famewhore as anyone else in the biz.
THIS TIMES AN EFFING MILLION. CANNOT STAND HER OR HER CRAPPY SONGS.
I find this ” impossible not to fall in love with me” statement insufferable. It seems that since her divorce she has been anxious to let us know how all men love her, want her, etc.
How about an effing billion? She’s always grated me, ever since the “I’ll never veer from my folk roots” and then turned right around and recorded one of the most horrible pop songs ever played. Just write “SELL-OUT” on your forehead in black sharpie. Also see lack of commitment in the fact that she said for years she would never fix her teeth because her snaggle toothe was part of her indentity, but lo and behold, she got her teeth fixed….but it was for her role as June Carter Cash ya’ll so it doesn’t count.
My brain saw Britney Spears in the header pic, so I had a “Sean Penn diddled her, too?” moment.
I actually thought it was that white-wearing kidnapping lady what’s her name, oh yeah Rutherford in the header pic!
Just goes to show anyone can fall for a creep. Why she wants to revisit.
Not a fan of her music, but she has aged incredibly well. I think she looks better at 41 than she did at 20-something!
I liked Jewel in the beginning, but her relationship with Sean Penn was always a bit shady to me. Despite what she says, I still think there was some overlap with Robin Wright, and I would bet more than one song is about him.
On the flip side, I still love her Standing Still video with Ty Murray.
so… Conan discovered her?
Major side-eye about the cell phone. LOL.
That’s what they all say dear. Before.
Was Sean Penn saying that about *him*self, or about Jewel? Serious question. Because in her interview she makes it sound like she is praising him to his face and he said Penn said it “would be impossible not to fall in love with me.” Because I can imagine that it would be precisely the arrogant thing he would say about himself.