Tragic Details About Britney And Jamie Lynn Spears' Relationship

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It's easy to assume that Britney Spears got along just fine with her younger sister, Jamie Lynn Spears, before she was placed under a conservatorship in 2008. After all, the two appeared to have nothing but love for each other whenever they were spotted together in their younger years. However, we only learned the tragic truth about Britney's relationship with her family after she finally got out of her 13-year conservatorship. In the "Toxic" hitmaker's 2023 memoir "The Woman In Me," she admitted to always feeling that Jamie Lynn called the shots around their home when they were children. 

Tragically, Britney felt like a "ghost child" because her sister and parents largely ignored her existence. Meanwhile, the "Zoey 101" alum had plenty of grievances of her own growing up in her pop star sister's shadow. In her own 2022 memoir "Things I Should Have Said," Jamie Lynn recalled how, from a young age, she had been taught to sacrifice her own needs for the sake of Britney's career. "Momma said stuff like, 'Come on, Jamie Lynn, we don't want to upset your sister,'" the former child actor revealed. "It could be something as simple as 'Let Britney do that first,' or 'If it's good for your sister, it's good for all of us.'" 

In "The Woman In Me," the Grammy winner acknowledged that growing up in the spotlight couldn't have been easy for her little sister, and she was trying her hardest to have more empathy for her, even though the former Nickelodeon star had hurt her in countless ways.

Britney Spears' fans have repeatedly slammed Jamie Lynn Spears for not supporting her through her conservatorship battle. However, during a January 2022 appearance on "Good Morning America," the "Sweet Magnolias" star pointed out that she had plenty on her plate when her big sister's conservatorship began, since she was gearing up to be a teen mom at the time. According to Jamie Lynn, she tried helping Britney when she had more mental space to spare. But, after a handful of unfruitful attempts to speak to the pop star's legal team on her behalf, Jamie Lynn reasoned that there was only so much she could do while she was unable to take concrete steps to get out of her conservatorship. 

However, the "Womanizer" songstress had a very different story to tell. Britney claimed in "The Woman In Me" that her little sister wasn't very empathetic to her pleas for help when she was initially forced to check into a mental health facility, responding by advising her: "Stop fighting it. There's nothing you can do about it, so stop fighting it." Just days after her "GMA" interview aired, Britney took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to criticize Jamie Lynn for not stepping up to the plate when she needed her the most, railing, "What Dad did to me, they don't even do to criminals ... so for you to sit back and act completely aloof to what has happened to me is honestly insane to me!!!" (via GoodToKnow).

In "Things I Should Have Said," Jamie Lynn Spears wrote extensively about how the end of Britney Spears' relationship with Kevin Federline turned her into somebody she didn't recognize, with the pop star becoming "disturbed and paranoid." According to the former child star, her older sister sometimes snapped at her and ignored her for no discernible reason. Jamie Lynn also posited that Britney exhibited similar behavior during her divorce from Jason Alexander. To make her case, the singer-songwriter reflected back on the time when Britney told her, "I'm scared," grabbed a knife, and then locked them in a bedroom together so they could sleep in the same bed. 

While ruminating on the incident again, in a 2022 ABC News interview, Jamie Lynn stated that her firsthand experiences of scary panic attacks didn't take away from how terrifying the situation was to her as a child. "I was scared," the "Zoey 101" star said. "[...] But I also was fearful to like really say anything because I didn't want to upset anybody but also was so upset that she didn't feel safe," (via The Independent). 

Elsewhere in the interview, Jaime Lynn disclosed that Britney picked a fight with her in front of her two young children while they were quarantining together. Things apparently got so heated that her eldest daughter felt the need to intervene and calm things down. It's worth noting that in a tweet, Britney denied the knife incident and the existence of the quarantine argument. However, she believed her "scum" sister deserved the credit for stooping to a low previously unknown to man (via People).

Many of Britney Spears' shadiest jabs at her sister Jamie Lynn Spears were contained in her bestselling memoir, "The Woman In Me." According to the pop star, Jamie Lynn didn't appreciate the fact that she got to live in a beautiful home because of her hard work, and instead treated the privilege as a cross to bear. Britney wrote that her younger sister only grew more entitled as she got older too, and refused to thank her for buying her a house that she used over the weekends. 

Britney used two brutal words to describe Jamie Lynn in her memoir: "total b***h." The Grammy winner similarly divulged that nobody in her immediate family informed her that her sister was pregnant; she only learned about the news in the tabloids. The hush-hush nature of the pregnancy became a tragic detail of Jamie Lynn's life, too. In "Things I Should Have Said," the former child actor wrote that she longed for her elder sister's support when she learned she was expecting. 

However, her team barred her from telling Britney since she was going through a tumultuous time and could potentially leak the news. Over a decade later, Jamie Lynn confessed, "To this day, the hurt of not being able to tell my sister myself lingers." As for Britney, she faced lingering hurt over her sister's book. In "The Woman In Me," she accused the Nickelodeon alum of dragging her name through the mud with it when she was still recovering from her grueling conservatorship.

In "The Woman In Me," Britney Spears opened up about how her little sister hurt her by writing about her in her own memoir, "Things I Should Have Said." As the "...Baby One More Time" songstress wondered sadly, "Shouldn't sisters be able to confess their fears or vulnerabilities to each other without that later being used as evidence of instability?" Moreover, the pop icon believed that Jamie Lynn was under the false impression that her success had been handed to her on a silver platter and was largely unaware of its many downsides. Britney seemingly wasn't that receptive to her reaching out amidst her lengthy conservatorship battle either. 

After the singer scored a major win in her trial by being permitted to have her pick of lawyers, Jamie Lynn took to Instagram to share that she was hopeful that her family's turmoil would end soon. A day later, Britney penned a shady Instagram message that was addressed to no one in particular: "How dare you make it public that NOW you CARE ... did you put your hand out when I was drowning ???? Again ... NO," (via CNN). Additionally, she reckoned that the anonymous person was better off dropping their righteous act. Confusingly, Jamie Lynn liked the post that seemingly shaded her. 

Meanwhile, the "Boys" hitmaker was a lot less subtle when she called her baby sister out for living off handouts and using her name to sell her memoir in a January 2022 Instagram post. Shortly afterward, Jamie Lynn took to Instagram again to proclaim that although she loved her sister, she couldn't invalidate her own feelings for her sake.

Jamie Lynn Spears apparently continued to have a soft spot for Kevin Federline even years after his split from her big sister, Britney Spears. In Kevin's 2025 book "You Thought You Knew," he claimed that after his pop star ex publicly criticized their two sons, Sean and Jayden Federline, Jamie Lynn sent him texts to offer her support. According to the dancer, the "Zoey 101" alum appreciated how he continued caring for the former couple's children through all the times when the "Piece of Me" songstress "couldn't be bothered." Jamie Lynn also supposedly confessed that she had "started to resent" her elder sister because of how callous Britney had been with her sons. The former child star also couldn't wrap her head around how self-centered she got.

To no one's surprise, the supposed text exchange took place when Britney and the Nick alum weren't on talking terms. Just a few years prior to the memoir's release, the Grammy winner opened up about another way in which her younger sister had betrayed her. Taking to Instagram in July 2021, Britney referenced how Jamie Lynn had performed a medley of her hit songs at the 2017 Radio Disney Music Awards, angrily asserting, "I don't like that my sister showed up at an awards show and performed MY SONGS to remixes !!!!! My so-called support system hurt me deeply !!!!" 

However, during a January 2022 appearance on "Good Morning America," the "Zoey 102" star acknowledged that she was unsure why her performance had rubbed her sister the wrong way, especially because it was a tribute to Britney's illustrious career.