Jewel Walked Away From Fame To Save Herself—Now Her #NotAloneChallenge Is Reaching Billions

In 1999, with her hit song Hands dominating radio and her career at its peak, Jewel made an unprecedented decision: she quit.

"There was no phrase like 'mental health break' back then," she tells me during our conversation on The Failure Factor podcast. "The level of fame I achieved didn't work for me. It didn't make me happy. I found it deeply triggering."

She didn’t know it then, but that commitment to mental health would one day shape a movement. Her #NotAloneChallenge—which launched its fourth annual campaign last month—has generated over three billion social media impressions and raised more than $3.5 million since 2022.