Jewel has responded to backlash over her recent appearance at the Make America Healthy Again Ball, a Donald Trump inauguration event honoring Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the president’s current pick to lead the Department Of Health and Human Services.
During her surprise performance at the ball, which took place on January 20th in Washington, D.C., Jewel played “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” In a video posted to Instagram, the singer explained that she saw the appearance as a way to address the “mental health crisis that’s facing our nation.”
“As many of you know, I am a mental health advocate,” she began the video (as transcribed by Stereogum). “If there’s anything that I’ve learned in the past 20 years, it’s that mental health affects everybody’s lives across party lines. I [also] reached out to the last administration [and] spoke with the surgeon general about the mental health crisis that’s facing our nation. I don’t know if you guys know the stats, but it is bleak.”
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Jewel continued, “If I wait to try until I agree 100% with the people that might be willing to help me, I’d never get off the bench. I don’t think that’s how activism works, waiting until everything’s perfect enough to participate. It’s actually… because things are so imperfect that we have to find ways to engage and to participate. And we have to act now. We cannot wait another four years.”
With the belief that there are some folks in the second Trump administration who “are willing to help on this issue,” Jewel hopes to “help shape policy, make sure mental health is in the conversation” and “put resources or mental health tools into the hands of the most vulnerable who need it.”
“I understand that my words were overly simplistic,” she admitted. “Half of our country feels hope right now, and I honor that. And half of our country feels disenfranchised and scared and vulnerable, and that is unacceptable.”
In addition, Jewel said she would advocate for her fans in the LGBTQIA+ community: “None of us can afford to stop fighting, and I really believe that the only way we can change is in relationship. It isn’t in isolation or by isolating, it’s by being in relationship, by reaching out, by having hard conversations, and I really hope that we can push through our hurt and move toward understanding on both sides.”
“I want to be a ray of light in this world. I try hard to be a ray of light in your lives,” she concluded. “I know that in times of darkness we must grow light, and so I will wake up again tomorrow and try again. And I will count on each of you to do the same.”
