LOS ANGELES – Singer-songwriter Jewel has claimed that her estranged mother embezzled US$100 million (S$133 million) from her.

The 48-year-old opened up about her relationship with her mother, Ms Nedra Carroll, who was also her business manager until 2003, on the latest episode of the Verywell Mind Podcast.

“I didn’t really realise what my mum was until I was 30something,” said the musician, who burst onto the scene in 1995 at the age of 21 with Pieces Of You, one of the best-selling debut albums of all time. “I woke up and realised she embezzled all of my money – over US$100 million.”

She added: “And then as I started investigating the truth about what my mum had told me in my life versus what was true, I had realised that pretty much everything that I had formed my reality off was fiction.”

Her parents had divorced when she was a child and she lived with her dad in Alaska.

“My dad didn’t take us from my mum, he actually did a good thing. I realised my mum left because she didn’t want to be a mum,” she said, adding that her childhood was scary and terrifying.

“Thirty-four-years old, realise I’m US$3 million in debt, realise my mum stole it, realise everything I thought my mum was, isn’t what she was, very difficult psychological thing to come to terms with,” said Jewel, who has been a long-time mental health advocate.

She first spoke about her estrangement from her mother in her memoir, Never Broken – Songs Are Only Half The Story, in 2015.

“I can’t tell you the tears I’ve cried to see who my mum really is. I can’t tell you about the pain and how my heart to this day screams to have a mum in my life,” she wrote.

“But I know that it is not safe with her. Every day, I miss having a mum. But I don’t miss Nedra.”