Actress and singer Jamie Lynn Spears talks about her difficult decision to leave Hollywood at the height of her career after becoming pregnant with her daughter Maddie. In a new interview, the “Zoey 101” alum also reflected on some of the difficult conversations she had with people who were against her becoming a teen mom.
Speak with PEOPLEJamie, the younger sister of megawatt pop star Britney Spearsrecalled some of the nasty things she heard from those closest to her after revealing she was pregnant at age 16.
“I was called the world’s biggest disappointment,” she said, adding that people wanted her to believe her “life was over.”
She added, “It was really hard not to believe those things.”
Why Jamie Lynn Spears decided to leave Hollywood behind and move south
Although Jamie didn’t release hit singles like her sister, she became one of the most prominent child actors at the time of her pregnancy.
She starred in the Nickelodeon sitcom ‘Zoey 101’ from 2005 to 2008 before making the difficult decision to run away from Hollywood to raise her daughter in ‘the middle of nowhere’ Mississippi.
“It was really just me and her,” she said. “I had to say, ‘Look, this little girl needs you. You better figure it out.’ I wanted to create a good, stable life for my daughter.”
Jamie Lynn Spears’ daughter says she’s not the reason ‘Zoey 101’ was canceled
During the interview, Jamie’s daughter, Maddie, talked about her life as the daughter and niece of two major celebrities.
Now that she’s older, Maddie says she’s spent most of her life dealing with people telling her she was the reason “Zoey 101” ended.
“My TikTok is all like, ‘You’re the reason ‘Zoey 101’ is over. I can’t believe you ended my show,'” she said. “I’m not the one who ended ‘Zoey 101,’ I promise.”
Jamie then intervened, saying, “I’ll repeat it until I’m blue in the face: We were packed! The contract terminated Zoey.”
Jamie Lynn took ‘responsibility’ for her pregnancy when she was a teenager
In a previous interview with Hannah Brown on her podcast ‘Better Tomorrow’, Jamie opened up about her teen pregnancy and revealed that she decided to take ‘responsibility’ for becoming pregnant at a young age.
“That was something that I took responsibility for in the way that made sense to me,” she said. “That doesn’t make sense to everyone else, but it made sense to me. The whole world came down and told me that I was the worst person in the world for doing that and that every young girl who ever watched my show would be ruined because of me and my personal decision.”
As she mentioned earlier, Jamie said she moved south with nothing but a home phone. Her reason? To focus on the things that really mattered at that moment.
“I think if you’re in a small town and you go into a store (where the clerk) is checking you out, it doesn’t matter who you are, what you’re doing or who’s taking your picture, she’s trying to get home to her kids,” Jamie said. “When you deal with people like that every day, you get a completely different perspective when a newspaper writes a bad headline about you that isn’t true. You know what, that doesn’t matter. These are the people who matter.”
Jamie has to say goodbye to ‘Zoey 101’ in the most perfect way
While “Zoey 101” wrapped in 2008, Jamie reprized her role as Zoey Brooks in the Paramount+ film “Zoey 102” in 2023.
Speak with Entertainment tonightthe actress called the moment she returned to set “surreal,” adding that she had to “pinch myself.”
“…it’s something we’ve worked very hard on for years, being patient to make sure it’s right, and putting the right things in place,” she said. “And then it’s like a dream come true. It’s something you’ve talked about and worked on and are trying to bring to life.”
Jamie credited the show’s fans with bringing the series back to life before thinking about what it meant to be reunited with a character she played at such a young age.
“I was so ingrained in that character, so revisiting her was something I always dreamed of. But I thought, ‘Can that really ever happen? In what world, dude?’ Who gets to do something like that twice? It’s one of those things that I wasn’t sure if it could ever happen, but I always dreamed of being able to do it and see where she is,” she said.
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