In her first on-camera interview with Good Morning America, Jamie Lynn Spears is opening up about her involvement in her sister’s 16-year conservatorship.
During her interview with GMA, Spears got emotional several times. She talked about her teen pregnancy, her daughter’s ATV accident, and her relationship with her famous sister, Britney Spears.
Jamie, as her sister has done in the past, spoke out against their father, Jaime Spears. She told Good Morning America that her father’s constant battle with alcoholism caused distrust and anxiety.
Jamie Lynn also talked about her current relationship with Britney, who is 10 years older than her. “She was like another mama,” Jamie admitted.
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However, while Jamie admitted she looked up to her superstar sister, she also said she watched as Britney’s behavior changed over the years. “Erratic, paranoid, and spiraling,” are a few ways Jamie described Britney’s past behavior.
And when it comes to Britney’s controversial conservatorship, Jamie admits she was a 17-year-old girl preparing to have a child. Not only did she not know why the conservatorship was put in place, she admitted to not being very involved because of her own trauma.
Nonetheless, while she admits she still knows little about the conservatorship, even today, she says she was happy when it was finally dissolved towards the end of 2021. Happy because it doesn’t matter what you’re going through, people deserve to have their voice heard.
“There was a time when my sister asked me if I would be the person who assured that her boys got what they needed, whether she was in a conservatorship or not, that was a very normal thing, I thought,” Jamie explained. However, after deciding she didn’t want to be involved in the conservatorship, Jamie stepped back.
But even though Jamie stepped back from being involved, she claims she was her sister’s biggest supporter and attempted to give Britney the tools she needed to help her get out of the conservatorship. Jamie specified that she made sure Britney had the contacts she needed but claimed that she could only do so much, it was Britney who needed to “step through the door.”
And when it comes to the current rift she and her sister are dealing with, Jamie admits she still loves her sister. “I’ve only ever loved and supported her and done what is right by her and she knows that. So I don’t know why we are in this position right now.”
During the interview, Jamie also opened up about being sent to a remote cabin without a phone so that the news of her teen pregnancy wasn’t something the Spears’ family PR team had to deal with. It was her punishment, she claimed, for not going through with the abortion they wanted her to have.
With tears in her eyes, Jamie was asked why that moment in her life still makes her emotional today. “I just thank God that I stood up for myself and said exactly what I wanted,” Jamie responded.
The now-mom of two talked about how suffocating it was to be away from home without contact with the outside world for weeks during one of the most emotional times in her life. “It felt like I was really being alienated.”
In June 2007, Jamie welcomed her daughter Maddy into the world. And for the most part, Jamie was able to quietly raise her child away from the spotlight.
It wasn’t until Maddy was 8 that the mother-daughter pair made headlines. In 2016, Maddy was riding an ATV on their property when the ATV flipped into a puddle of water.
For six minutes, Maddy was submerged under water until first responders were able to retrieve her. Thankfully she survived, but Jamie admits it changed her life forever.
“The biggest thought that haunts me is that when I was trying to save her, when I thought that I lost her, I was so afraid that her last thought was, ‘Why didn’t mama save me?’ I just hope she knows that I was doing everything I could, if that was the last thing she lived.”
After Maddy recovered, Jamie got closer to God and made the decision to deal with her mental health. As Jamie told Good Morning America, her anxiety and OCD had become all-consuming.
“When your worst fear happens, you get a lot less afraid of everything else. It made me reevaluate everything and who I was as a person and where I needed to be better.”
In the end, Jamie says she decided to speak her truth through her new book because she wants her daughters to know that they have a right to use their voice as well.