In a new interview, the 'You Were Meant for Me' singer also reveals that she was once asked by a male journalist, 'How do you give a blow job with those f**ked-up teeth?'
- Apr 11, 2022
AceShowbiz - Jewel Kilcher's career journey is not always happy and beautiful. In a new interview, the "You Were Meant for Me" singer recalled when a DJ inappropriately introduced her on-air by referencing her breast size.
"I remember South Carolina, live on-air, 'Hey, you may have heard me describe my next guest as a large-breasted woman from Alaska. Jewel, how are you?' " the singer/songwriter shared in a new interview with Stereogum. Jewel added that when she tried to fire back, she was kicked out of the radio station.
Jewel continued, "I said, 'You must be the small-penis man I've heard so much about from South Carolina.' Escorted out of the radio station." She added, "Like, that was just life. That's what life was like." Unfortunately, that wasn't the only time for Jewel to face such sexist interviewer. She revealed that she was once asked by by a male journalist, "How do you give a blow job with those f**ked-up teeth?"
During the new interview, Jewel also recalled being belittled by former MTV anchor Kurt Loder in 1998. At the time, Kurt allegedly spoke condescendingly of her poetry book in addition to correcting her for misusing a word.
"I was so pissed," she shared. "He was just a d**k. What an a** to show himself like that. It was almost that thing where you'd feel sorry for somebody - it's like, 'Wow, here's a full-grown man who does news for children, on a children's network, for teenagers.' Yeah. You're bitter."
She continued, "My whole career, the slant that the media gave it was through a really, I dare say, patriarchal lens. You think of my origin story, right? The whole world knows I lived in my car - they think because I was fighting for my dream of music. That is an absolute misrepresentation of what happened."
Jewel shared that she was homeless because she refused to sleep with her boss at the time. "I refused to be leveraged and he wouldn't give me my paycheck and I couldn't pay my rent and I started living in my car and then my car got stolen and I was homeless because of that, because I wouldn't bang a boss," she said in the interview.
"I was not even thinking I would be a musician. I was trying to figure out how to stand up for myself, how to refuse to be leveraged for anything or anyone," she divulged. "It was an active defiance, it was an act of courage. It cost me a lot, but it won me myself. It won me my humanity. I'm so proud of that decision. It was so funny to see it portrayed as some cute, fluffy little, 'Aw, she was fighting for her dream.' I didn't even have a dream. It's not what I was doing."
