Sharing her truth. Jamie Lynn Spears is gearing up to share her story as a former child star and a teen mom in her forthcoming memoir, Things I Should Have Said.
In the 30-year-old Sweet Magnolias star’s autobiography — which is set for a January 2022 publication date — she candidly opens up about how she discovered she was pregnant with daughter Maddie, now 13, and how her older sister, Britney Spears, learned of the pregnancy reveal.
“My team believed everyone outside of the inner circle was a potential threat,” the Zoey 101 alum claimed in the book, which was excerpted by People on Tuesday, November 9. “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 [to] help me in my most vulnerable time. Britney’s condition was spiraling into something more concerning.”
Jamie Lynn noted that her team and family were “concerned” about the 39-year-old Mickey Mouse Club alum’s alleged instability at the time, claiming she was “untrustworthy.”
The Mississippi native continued, “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. Britney learned of the pregnancy when the article was released. To this day, the hurt of not being able to tell my sister myself lingers.”
At the time of the former Nickelodeon star’s pregnancy, the “Circus” performer made headlines after a public breakdown led her to temporarily lose custody of sons Sean Preston, 16, and Jayden, 15, whom she shares with ex-husband Kevin Federline. A conservatorship over her estate and person was then established in February 2008, controlled by father Jamie Spears. (A legal case regarding the status of the conservatorship is currently ongoing.)
Elsewhere in the book excerpt, the All That alum further explained that throughout her pregnancy, she was determined to move out of her parents’ home and raise her baby on her own, remaining separated from both them and the “Toxic” songstress.
“Britney was in the midst of her own crisis, and because we were isolated from each other, our communication was nonexistent,” Jamie Lynn wrote. “My family denied my attempts to be independent and left me with no other choice than to threaten to file for emancipation with the courts. I spent days agonizing with my pending decision. But I followed my gut and instructed my new lawyer to go ahead and draw up the petition. … Simultaneously, my sister was experiencing her own breakdown, and media speculation about her wellness and our family already had the paparazzi swarming. Everyone involved with my saga reluctantly agreed that we needed to do what was best to avoid any more negative media attention.”
Jamie Lynn first announced in 2007 that she and boyfriend Casey Aldridge were expecting, though was nervous to tell her parents the news.
“You have your first love, or what you call love in high school. You think it’s forever, and then oh, my gosh, I’m pregnant,” she told Nylon in October 2020. “‘I am mortified to have to tell my parents this and my family this.’ … That was all I was thinking about: ‘These are the people I love that I have to tell, and also, I’m pregnant. There’s a human being growing inside of me, and I’m so young, I’m almost a baby myself.’”
Shortly after Maddie’s birth, Jamie Lynn — fresh off the success of Zoey 101 — expressed her desire to “hide away for a little bit” as she raised her little one.
“I got me a little house,” she told the magazine at the time. “I put a big gate up around it, and I was like, ‘I’m going to stay here, raise my baby and figure this out because this is real life. I’ve put myself in this situation, I’m not condoning it or saying it’s right, but these are the cards that I have to play.’ And I tried to do the best that I could.”
The actress and Aldridge, 32, eventually split in 2009 before she later wed Jamie Watson in March 2014. The couple welcomed daughter Ivey, now 3, in 2018.
The Nickelodeon alum previously announced her memoir in October, writing via Instagram, “I can’t believe I finally finished writing my book!!! ‘THINGS I SHOULD HAVE SAID’ has been in the works for quite a longggg time now. But there was a lot of personal work and healing that had to happen before I could share my truth the proper way. I’ve spent my whole life believing that I had to pretend to be perfect, even when I wasn’t, so for the first time I am opening up about my own mental health, because this process challenged me to have to be painfully honest with myself, and face a lot of hard things, that I normally would have just glossed right over, like I was taught to.”
Things I Should Have Said is set to be released on January 18, 2022.