Of all the stars who agreed to perform at Donald Trump’s inauguration day events, Jewel was perhaps the most surprising. Country singer Carrie Underwood, who sang during the president’s inauguration ceremony, has been elaborately apolitical, while it’s not even clear if the “real” Village People was on stage at the Liberty Inaugural Ball. Then there’s Nelly, who likened the invitation to the military draft. An odd argument, to be sure, but not as confusing as the one presented by the 1990s pop sensation, who says she’s certain that Trump is committed to ending our country’s mental health crisis.
Jewel made this claim in an emotional Instagram post on Friday, saying that she performed at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” inauguration celebration ball because “I am a mental health advocate.” It’s an assertion that likely made the millions of people who have felt their mental wellness crumble in the past week gnash their teeth in frustration, especially when the singer continued, “I believe I can help, and if I believe I can help, I have to try.” That meant serenading RFK Jr. and his wife, actor Cheryl Hines, with a rendition of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow,” though it’s unclear how the performance of the famous song made an impact on the fight for our nation’s sanity.
It appears that to Jewel, Trump was the only candidate ready to tackle the issue. “We cannot wait another four years,” she said of the mental health crisis. “If I can help shape policy, make sure mental health is in the conversation when it comes to American health, if I can help put resources or mental health tools into the hands of the most vulnerable who need it, I’m going to try, and I’m going to fight.”
As reported by NPR in October, Trump’s policies around mental health include forcing people into mental hospitals and gathering the unwell—who he referred to in a campaign video as “dangerously deranged”—into tent cities. His positions on treatment for people with mental illness have been widely condemned by mental advocates who are not Jewel, with the National Alliance on Mental Illness saying that he is perpetuating false stereotypes and saying that he refers to mentally ill people as “monsters.”
“Words matter, Mr. President,” NAMI Acting CEO Angela Kimball said in a statement. “‘These people’ are our friends, neighbors, children, spouses. They’re not ‘monsters,’ ‘the mentally ill,’ or ‘crazy people’ – they’re us. Talking about reinstitutionalization only further marginalizes and isolates the one in five people with mental illness. Instead, we need to be talking about the power of early treatment and effective intervention to change lives.”
Jewel didn’t address that contradiction in Friday’s post, in which she said that she is “So sorry that I caused pain, especially in my LGBTQIA+ community, because you guys are treasures.” The singer, who Joe Rogan once called “one of the most interesting people I’ve ever had the pleasure to talk to” (she reciprocated by defending the podcaster in 2022 after he was accused of spreading misinformation about the pandemic), also didn’t address the contraction of speaking out against the horrific sexual harassment she’s faced during her career while performing for RFK Jr., who has been credibly accused of sexual harassment. Not to mention that the performance in question was to celebrate Donald Trump, a man who has been accused of sexual violence by a number of women.
The singer, who in 2023 made a point of tweeting in support of the misinformation-packed and highly fictional film Sound of Freedom, which was widely criticized for perpetuating false narratives about child sex trafficking, might benefit from taking a page from Nelly’s book. In explaining his presence at the Liberty Ball, the “Hot In Herre” singer suggested that he was essentially drafted into performing.
“It doesn’t matter who is in office,” Nelly said. “The same way that our men and women, our brothers and sisters who protect this country, have to go to war and have to put their life on the line for whoever in office. So if they can put their life on the line for whoever in office, I can damn sure perform.”
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