Jewel

NEW YORK (AP) -- Jewel is expecting a precious ..... the first child for Jewel and her husband, rodeo champion Ty Murray . Jewel and Murray were married ..... Her hits include " You Were Meant for Me ." The pregnancy was first …

Some celebs have overcome considerable odds to get their "happily ever after" ending. By Drew Mackie. For every celebrity who stumbles into a life of fame and fortune, there's another who worked especially hard to overcome some obstacle. In the spirit of the upcoming "Mirror, Mirror" and all things fairy tale, read about some stars who overcame adversity to achieve their Hollywood-style "happily ever after" ending.Nicole RichieYou can't give Richie credit for the fact that Lionel Richie adopted her after her birth parents couldn't rise to the challenge of raising their daughter. That's just luck. You can credit Richie, however, with her transformation from Paris Hilton's "heir"-head friend into a composed, sober, family-oriented woman. Following a short jail sentence in 2007 for a DUI, Richie apparently took all the energy she'd previously spent on partying and directed it toward her growing family with Joel Madden -- her first child, daughter Harlow, was born only months later -- and learning the ropes of the fashion industry by developing House of Harlow 1960, the accessory line she named for her daughter. Justin Bieber. Sure, he's everywhere now, but it's curious to think back on a non-Bieber-saturated world. The son of a single mom who had him when she was only 18, Bieber grew up poor in Canada. He taught himself to play music and achieved only local fame until a fairy godmother called YouTube abracadabra-ed him into a record contract. Just four years later, it's safe to say that Bieber's ever after is indeed happy. Oprah Winfrey. Until the point when she became known for shoveling gifts onto her studio audience, Winfrey's life more or less reads as her encountering one hurdle after another. There's her being born to a teen mom, growing up poor, suffering sexual abuse, handling and weight struggles as well as drug struggles, just to name some of the major life challenges. Winfrey, however, has not only endured but thrived, and should rightly inspire anyone to believe that they can put their troubles behind them and move forward. Jim Carrey. As far as Hollywood parables go, the story of Carrey's road to success is a good one. After struggling to make it as an actor and comedian, Carrey inspired himself to push even harder by writing a check for $10 million in 1983, postdating it by 10 years and then challenging himself to be able to cash it in time. Ultimately, he made his career with the title role in 1994's "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective," proving that good things come to those who wait... and wait and wait. Charlize Theron. Today she's known for her terrific acting ability and her striking beauty, but life was not always so easy for this Oscar-winner. As a child, she endured the tense atmosphere created by her alcoholic father. When Theron was 15 years old, her mother shot her father to death after he physically threatened the family. And while a court ruled that Theron's mother's actions had been in self-defense, she for years told reporters that her father died in a car accident. Traumatic though the incident must have been, Theron overcame it. Tom Cruise. It's been so long since "All the Right Moves" and "Risky Business" hit theaters that it's hard to remember a time when this guy wasn't a household name. However, a very young Tom Cruise struggled with an abusive father, who he has called a "merchant of terror," before escaping to Hollywood. The fact that he's now the widest-smiling actor around should give hope to anyone else wishing they could escape a bad home life and find a happy ending. Hilary Swank. Most actors have to struggle to break into Hollywood, and Swank was fortunate enough to have a parent willing to endure that hardship. Following her parents' divorce, Swank and her mother relocated from Washington to California, where they initially lived together in their car. Post-"The Next Karate Kid," however, Swank's homes have all lacked wheels. Diddy. Even irrespective of his own music career, Diddy's life serves as a remarkable example of how to grow a business empire. He quickly rose in the ranks at Uptown Records from a mailroom intern to a junior executive; now he's got his hands in music, fashion and fragrances, among other business ventures. His childhood in a housing project in Harlem, however, was rough: His father was shot to death, presumably as a result of his organized crime connections. That hardship, however, pushed Diddy to pursue financial success through more legitimate means. Drew Barrymore. On one hand, this scion of an established acting family had her career handed to her. But she nearly lost it all as a result of her infamously wild lifestyle. In fact, Barrymore only returned to the spotlight following 1996's "Scream." And if she makes it to the altar with fiance Will Kopelman -- and if the rumors that she's expecting turn out to be true -- then she'll only now be taking those final steps into full-fledged adulthood. Maybe she's arrived at a happier "ever after" than even the one she got in "Ever After." Mark Wahlberg. It's easy to look at Wahlberg's career in terms of his evolution from Funky Bunch member to actor to Hollywood producer. But that growth leaves out his origin as the youngest of nine children born to a blue-collar Boston family. At 16, Wahlberg beat a man so badly that he went blind in one eye. He would repent as an adult, however, making a concentrated effort to follow a path other than the one that sent his siblings to prison. And although he's always owned up to his violent past, he's also proved that people can change their ways -- and be the better for it. Sarah Jessica Parker. Having been famous since she first belted out "Tomorrow" on Broadway in 1976, Parker seems like an unlikely person to have emerged from something less than a typical movie star household. But SJP, who was one of four children from her mother's first marriage and who later collected four half-siblings when her mother remarried, grew up on welfare in Cincinnati. All that "Annie" money surely helped pay the whopping grocery bills. An additional "happily ever after" for Parker? Fashion icons don't have to wear hand-me-downs. Tyler Perry. In a short period of time, Perry has emerged as a one-man movie-producing powerhouse with an incredibly loyal fan base. However, Perry's go-to subject matter -- family dysfunction -- arises from his own troubled upbringing. As a child, he was physically abused by his father to the point that Perry once attempted suicide. He also endured sexual abuse. So not only has Perry overcome a less-than-auspicious youth, but he has also turned a potential vulnerability into his best asset as a writer. Duchess Kate. To be fair, the woman formerly known as Kate Middleton hasn't been in the international eye all that long. But regardless of where her life takes her, Duchess Kate's story so far makes for obvious fairy tale parallels. After all, she was born a commoner but married into royalty. Based on what we've seen of the duchess's public self, however, we feel totally comfortable thinking of her story as a parable about the just rewards that come to those who wait patiently and comport themselves with grace. Commencing graceful waiting period… now. Leighton Meester. When you compare Meester's origin and the posh Manhattan digs that she frequents as an actress on "Gossip Girl," her story does sort of read like a play on Cinderella's. If you squint. While Meester was born in a hospital, she only spent three months in a halfway house with her mother, who then returned to prison to finish out a sentence for her role in a marijuana-smuggling operation. When news of the incident broke in 2008, Meester's "Gossip" co-star, Matthew Settle, spun the story into an inspirational one: "She's proof the dream can be had by all," Settled told Us Weekly. Dolly Parton. This country singer has come a long way from her beginnings -- and we're not just talking cosmetically. The fourth of 12 children born to a Tennessee tobacco farmer, Parton grew up in a one-room cabin. However, she never let her humble beginnings embarrass her. She even celebrated them in her song "Coat of Many Colors," whose lyrics explain, "One is only poor, only if they choose to be / Now I know we had no money, but I was rich as I could be." Of course, she's also actually rich now, but at least she can truly appreciate her fortune. Danny DeVito. Excuse the comparison, Danny, but we liken you to a certain fairy tale waterfowl who didn't fit the mold but turned out to be even greater as a result. Standing only 5 feet tall, DeVito doesn't seem like a natural movie star, and indeed he struggled in Hollywood to the point that he slept on New York City buses in order to save money. Today, however, DeVito has found success on TV, in movies and behind the scenes as a producer. And he also married Rhea Perlman, a real Thumbelina to his Tom Thumb. Padma Lakshmi. Now the host of "Top Chef," Lakshmi rose to prominence for being the first Indian model to walk Paris runways. Her ethnicity was not the only quality that made her novel, however; as the result of a car accident at age 14, she also has a 7-inch scar spanning her left arm. Rather than hide the scar, Lakshmi embraces it, telling People magazine , "I love it because it makes me a person who has an interesting past, and it reminds me that I can survive any pain." The "happily ever after" she found success professionally proves that with the proper attitude, looking different can be an asset. Jewel . It seems like anyone writing about Jewel has to mention her down-on-her-luck past, but that's because it's hard to resist such a rags-to-riches story. It's true: Jewel grew up in Alaska in a home equipped with an outhouse before living in her van while she wrote songs, strummed her guitar and waited to be discovered. Clearly, the planned worked out, because everyone was humming " Who Will Save Your Soul ?" by mid-1996. Marlee Matlin. The Oscar-winner was not born deaf, but she lost 90 percent of her hearing at 18 months old. For many, near-total deafness would seem to preclude a career in acting, but she nonetheless made her stage debut at 7 years old and feature film debut at 21 in "Children of a Lesser God." She continued to act, and, perhaps just as remarkably, she also competed on " Dancing With the Stars " in spite of the fact that she couldn't hear the music in the way every other contestant could.