Why Jamie Lynn Spears Says She Wasn't Allowed to Tell Sister Britney Spears About Her Teen Pregnancy

In Jamie Lynn Spears' new memoir Things I Should Have Said, the Zoey 101 alum looks back at when she was pregnant at 16 years old.

By Elyse Dupre Nov 10, 2021 10:03 PMTags

Jamie Lynn Spears is recalling how her family and team reacted when she told them she was pregnant at 16 years old

The Zoey 101 alum, now 30, looks back at that time in her new memoir, Things I Should Have Said, which is scheduled for publication in January 2022.

In 2007, Jamie Lynn and her then-boyfriend Casey Aldridge learned they were expecting a child. According to an excerpt from the memoir published by People, "Things spiraled out of control pretty quickly" after her mom Lynne Spears and dad Jamie Spears told her team the news. 

"There was a whole lot of fighting going on between everyone involved," she wrote. "The entire Spears team was already caught up in my sister's PR difficulties, and everyone around me just wanted to make this 'issue' disappear."

Jamie Lynn said "one person after another" tried to convince her that having a baby at this point in her life was a "terrible idea" and to consider having an abortion or placing the child for adoption. She also alleged that she was taken out of school, had her phone taken away and had the news kept from nearly everyone, including her sister, Britney Spears

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Jamie Lynn Spears & Britney Spears' Sister Moments

"My team believed everyone outside of the inner circle was a potential threat," she added, per the magazine's excerpt. "They went so far as hiding my pregnancy from my sister, claiming, 'It's too risky to tell Britney about the baby.' I needed her more than ever and she wasn't able help me in my most vulnerable time."

"Britney's condition was spiraling into something more concerning," she wrote, referencing Britney's 2007 breakdown. "They were concerned her instability at that time made her untrustworthy. I went along with what my team told me to do because I was a minor and didn't want to create any more issues."

In the book excerpt, Jamie Lynn said Britney didn't learn about the pregnancy until it was announced in an article. "To this day," she wrote, "the hurt of not being able to tell my sister myself lingers."

Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic, C Flanigan/WireImage

Jamie Lynn gave birth to her now-13-year-old daughter, Maddie, in 2008. She and Casey later split, and Jamie Lynn wed Jamie Watson in 2014. In 2018, she gave birth to her second daughter, Ivey.

So where do Jamie Lynn and Britney stand? In June, after Britney spoke out at her conservatorship hearing, Jamie Lynn took to Instagram and said she's "loved, adored and supported" Britney since the day she was born.

"I have made a very conscious choice to only participate in her life as her sister, as an aunt to those boys," she said, referencing Britney's sons Sean Preston Federline and Jayden James Federline. "Maybe I didn't support her the way the public would like me to with a hashtag on a public platform, but I can assure you that I have supported my sister long before there was a hashtag and I'll support her long after."

In July, Britney took to Instagram and called out those "closest" to her. "There's nothing worse than when the people closest to you who never showed up for you post things in regard to your situation whatever it may be and speak righteously for support," she wrote in a since-deleted post, without naming names. "There's nothing worse than that!!!! How dare the people you love the most say anything at all…did they even put a hand out to even lift me up at the TIME!!!??? How dare you make it public that NOW you CARE…did you put your hand out when I was drowning ???? Again…NO."