Jamie Lynn Spears has admitted it would be better for her mental health if she quit showbiz – but it is “the only way I know how to be”.
The actor and sister of Britney has come close to quitting the jungle as she struggles to cope with the camp conditions and perhaps also being back in the limelight. In an interview shortly before she went into camp, she said of working in showbiz: “It’s probably, for my mental health, better if I was to say I’m never doing this again, but it’s all I know. It’s the only way I know how to be, it’s part of me.
“How do you unknow something? I instinctively knew being mum was what I needed to do. It’s part of who I was now. So it was about figuring out how I do this now that doesn’t take away from work. And also clarity that I was a child, but I’m not a child anymore. Having a different perspective on I can control the steps I take, I felt like I knew it was always going to happen.”
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Mother-of-two Jamie Lynn was pregnant at 16, and then also lived in an extreme spotlight as Britney became a star and suffered with her own problems. She also credited her therapist with getting her life back on track, which has seen her act in Netflix hit series Sweet Magnolias in recent years as well as appear on other reality TV shows.
And she urged other people to consider doing the same. Jamie Lynn told Variety: “Several times in your life it’s going to feel like it’s over. I think it’s important to remember my ship might be steady now but there might be a time when it’s not. There’s a season for everything.
“For me, the first time I went to a therapist I told her what I thought she wanted to hear. It wasn’t until I was like, if this is going to work, I have to really tell them how I feel. When I did that, that’s when i started to see the change. It was OK to feel this way, it was almost like I hated that feeling because it made me feel really vulnerable, but at the same time it was necessary.
“If more people said screw it, I’m going to let it all go and find someone they feel comfortable talking with, even if it’s someone you know, having that time set aside made a difference for me. I don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t take that first step.”
Jamie Lynn is expected to be greeted by her husband Jamie and children, Maddie, 15, and Ivey, 5 when she leaves the show. And she admitted her youngest could follow in her footsteps and be another Spears working in showbiz.
She said: “I do involve my children, it’s good for them to understand our world and also appreciate everyone else’s world too. Would I want her to go into the business? I don’t particularly want that, but when you see their eyes light up about something, everything else fades away. My oldest daughter is more of an athlete, I don’t think she has any interest in this.
“She could be a model if she wanted to but she’s an athlete and that’s where she is, I love that. I can’t believe the things she does, she’s a bad ass player. I feel that’s tougher than what I did. And my youngest one, she seems like she might have the bug. At her preschool graduation everyone holds up their sign saying what they’re going to be when they grow up, she wrote movie star! I was like, oh my gosh! I’ve never told her that but she seems to have the bug, I guess.”
Speaking in camp over the weekend she insisted Britney would be worried about her on the show, despite their previous public rows. She told Sam Thompson: ” I can imagine she’d be worried about me on here, I think she is checking in on me heavily. She said ‘You’re really gonna do it?’ and I said ‘I’m gonna go to Australia to check it out.’ When I’m crying, she’ll probably be like ‘Get out of there, right now.’ “
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