23 November 2023 , 19:45
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Jamie Lynn Spears once made the brutal decision to cut her parents out of her life.
Proving she's not to be messed with, this week she showed the other I'm A Celebrity campmates how it’s done when she took on a sky high obstacle course and picked up all 10 stars during her Climb of Cruelty Bushtucker trial. Winning food for the entire camp certainly seemed to cheer the star, who has been missing her children Maddie, 15 and Ivey Joan, 5. But what happened to Britney Spears' younger sister in the past and why did Jamie Lynn try to divorce her parents?
While Britney Spears is much more well known in the UK than her younger sister, Jamie Lynn used to be one of Nickelodeon’s biggest stars. Now 32, she gave up her TV career on Nickelodeon show Zoey 101 when she became a teenage mum. Jamie Lynn was just 16 when she fell pregnant with her then boyfriend, Casey Aldridge, 18. In her memoir Things I Should Have Said which came out in 2022, Jamie Lynn revealed how she nearly divorced her parents because she wanted to take back control of her own life.
She told her I’m A Celeb campmates how everyone thought she should have an abortion - including her parents. She also said she was being followed by "20 paparazzi" and had to relocate to Mississippi to get away from the chaos. She even went as far as to draw up papers to emancipate her parents so she could make her own decisions. Jamie Lynn said: “One person after another— and there were many — came to my room trying to convince me that having a baby at this point in my life was a terrible idea."
Jamie Spears, Bryan Spears, Jamie-Lynn Spears, Britney Spears and Lynne Spears pose for the camera (WireImage)But the young couple didn’t listen and Jamie Lynn and Casey got engaged and welcomed daughter Maddie Briann, now 15, into the world on June 19, 2008. She added: “When I got out of that, I told my parents I was going to emancipate them, that way I could make my own decisions. I was secretly telling her I was going to doctor's appointments. I was going to meetings with a lawyer… My poor mum, we put her through it.”
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Luckily, Jamie Lynn didn't have to go through with the ‘divorce’ because her mother Lynn loosened the reins. “She didn’t want me to do that, she knew that would mean I’d probably marry the father and lose my fortune that I’d amassed over the years of working,” Jamie Lynn explained. “She said, ‘Just go baby…’. It was the first time I was in control.
Jamie Lynn split with Maddie’s father Casey after two years before meeting Jamie Watson, a businessman. In 2013 they announced their engagement and got married the year after. That same year Jamie Lynn was diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder but says Jamie has helped her find “peace”. "I was an 18 year old single mum when this guy came into my life,” Jamie Lynn wrote on Instagram.
"He made me laugh more than I ever had before, and his never changing consistency gave me stability for the first time in my life. Maybe it was just because he was 10 years older and had already established a successful life for himself both personally and professionally, but nonetheless, I felt a sense of peace with him, and I think that’s what being in love is supposed to feel like, just feeling at peace." They couple went on to have a daughter together, Ivey who was born in 2018 is now 5.
Jamie Lynn is named after both her parents - her dad is called Jamie and her mother is Lynne. The couple married in 1976 and had their first child, Bryan Spears, in 1977. However, it’s been a turbulent relationship and Lynne filed for divorce in 1980 but they were back together in 1981 when they welcomed their eldest daughter Britney into the world. Ten years later, Jamie Lynn was born and although their divorce went ahead in 2002 in 2010 they rekindled their relationship and remarried.
Jamie, 71, has struggled with alcohol addiction and left rehab in July after completing a 30-day program, claims the Daily Mail. He is living in a guest house at Jamie Lynn's property in Hammond, Louisiana, with her husband Jamie Watson and their daughters Ivey, five, and Maddie, 15. Britney and Jamie Lynn’s mother. Meanwhile, Lynne has gone back to teaching to try and make ends meet.