'Please get sober': Singer Jewel's 'blunt' letter to Tony Hsieh months before his death revealed
This article contains content that could be traumatic for some readers. Discretion is advised.
NEW LONDON, CONNECTICUT: Folk singer Jewel reportedly tried to save her longtime friend, Zappos founder Tony Hsieh with a powerful letter a few months before his 2020 death, it has been revealed. The letter has now been printed in a new biography titled 'Wonder Boy: Tony Hsieh, Zappos, and the Myth of Happiness in Silicon Valley.' "I find it incredibly sad and I don't think this is your time to die," Jewel wrote to him after going concerned following a visit to Hsieh's home in Park City, Utah, in August 2020.
Jewel went to his house to find that he was surrounded by dozens of cans of nitrous oxide. It is said Hsieh was inhaling 50 cans of the lethal gas a day as he believed they eliminated the need for sleep. There were dog feces on the floor and wax from several candles. Taps were left running.
RELATED ARTICLES
Tony Hsieh death mystery: Why was ex-Zappos CEO's home barely damaged in the fire that killed him?
Jewel's letter to Tony Hsieh
In the letter, Jewel warned that she was going to be "blunt." "I need to tell you that I don't think you are well and in your right mind. I think you are taking too many drugs that cause you to dissociate," she wrote. "Your intelligence is formidable, but I see you are creating rationalizations that are ludicrous and medically unsound and the people you are surrounding yourself with are either ignorant or willing to be complicit in you killing yourself."
She told him taking nitrous oxide would not "hack sleep" and told him to "come back to Earth." "If the world could see how you are living they would not see you as a tech visionary, they would see you as a drug-addicted man who is a cliche. And that's not how you should go down or be known. Please don't be like the stereotype of a billionaire who surrounds himself with yes men and goes from eccentric to madness - but never sees the line that is crossed because he won't listen to anyone that loves him," she continued.
"Maybe people are too polite or need too much money from you to tell you that the only harm to you right now is yourself. Please get sober. Prove that it is your brilliance that gets the pull of the impossible and not the drugs. If you can only create and be brilliant when you are high, then it is not you anyway, It's the plant speaking through you and anyone can be that. And I believe you are more than that," she wrote, adding, "What you are saying isn't smart. It's mental. The brilliance for creating connection is killed by the fantasy world you are living in. You can't even connect with me or anyone who comes to the house. It's sad. I find it incredibly sad and I don't think this is your time to die."
'There's people taking advantage of Tony in there'
When Jewel visited his house before writing the letter, she found hundreds of candles lighting all the rooms. There were Whip-It canisters everywhere and taps were left running to "emulate the ambiance of the Amazon jungle," Daily Mail reported. Authors Angel Au-Yeung and David Jeans wrote Jewel was sure he "was going to die if he stayed on this path."
She told his head of security, "There's people taking advantage of Tony in there. There's dangerous behavior. He's not being protected. And I'm putting you on notice that if anything happens scope was going to die in there. He's gonna light that house on fire."
Her efforts, however, failed. In October that year, Hseih met his end at the New London, Connecticut, home of his girlfriend, Rachel Brown. He was pulled out unconscious from a burning shed attached to the house and died of smoke inhalation in the hospital nine days later, on November 18, 2020. Authors said he descended from being a "shining example of an unconventional business leader who cared more about helping others find happiness than profit margins."