On This Day in 2010: Jewel Goes Undercover at Karaoke

Seven years ago today, Jewel filmed a video for Funny or Die that made her the talk of the internet for…oh, let’s go with Andy Warhol’s axiom and say it lasted for probably 15 minutes or so. Still, it was a very, very funny 15 minutes.

As Jewel explains in the intro to the video, she was called by Funny or Die and asked if she’d be up for putting on a disguise, going to a karaoke bar, and singing her own songs. Why? Just to see if anyone in the place would say, “Hey, wait a second, is that actually Jewel?”

One thing’s for certain: to look at her, you never would’ve guessed that “Karen,” with her brunette hair, glasses, and upsized nose, was Jewel. The crowd of “co-workers” who came to the bar with “Karen” certainly did their part, too, spending several minutes trying to talk her – sometimes even shame her – into taking her turn on the mike to do a song. Finally, “Karen” took the stage, looking crazy nervous at first, but once she starting singing “Who Will Save Your Soul,” it didn’t take long for members of the crowd to…request an encore.

Yep, that’s right: a few people acknowledged that, yes, she did sound rather a lot like the real Jewel, but even then you really didn’t hear anyone saying, “Okay, that’s totally her!”

Of course, after “Karen” left the stage and Jewel suddenly came into the club, at which point…a remarkable number of people STILL didn’t put two and two together!

Funny stuff. Not that you’d expect anything less from Funny or Die.