Jamie Lynn Spears is speaking candidly about becoming a mother as a teenager.
In 2007, Spears, now 35, was 16 years old and known widely for Zoey 101 when she learned she was pregnant while in a relationship with her then-boyfriend Casey Aldridge.
Speaking in this week’s issue of PEOPLE, available on newsstands Friday, Spears says the tabloid reaction was severe.
“I was called the biggest letdown in the world,” she says.
“I was told my life was over. It was really, really tough not to believe those things.”
Spears, the younger sister of Britney Spears, says she left Hollywood because she wanted her daughter Maddie to grow up in a healthy setting.
She relocated to “the middle of nowhere” in Mississippi.
“It really was just me and her,” says Spears, who later ended her relationship with Aldridge and returned to Louisiana, where she was raised.
“I had to be like, ‘Look, this little girl needs you. You better figure it out.’ I wanted to create a good, stable life for my daughter.”
As Maddie got older, Spears says she “wanted her to have a mom she could be proud of.”
“I wanted to make sure [she knew] that it wasn’t her fault that she got a mom who was 16 and pregnant,” Spears says.
“So, I wanted to make sure I did everything right. I think I was a bit of a helicopter parent.”
Maddie, now 18, says her mother had firm rules, but she understands why.
“She was definitely strict but with good reason. She just wants me to be safe,” Maddie says.
“We just had fun together because she did have me so young.”
Although Maddie was born into a famous family, she says Spears made sure her childhood felt ordinary.
Spears did a “really good job of giving me a normal childhood,” Maddie says.
“I never felt different,” she adds.
Spears says fame was simply part of Maddie’s reality from birth.
“She was born with everyone knowing who her family is, so there wasn’t anything odd about it because it’s pretty much all she’s ever known,” Spears says.
That unusual family background also led to some humorous moments, according to Spears.
She says Maddie once believed “all pop stars were her aunt.”
“She was like, ‘Aunt Gaga! Aunt RiRi!’” Spears says.
“I was like, ‘No, no, no, no. That’s not how this works.’ I don’t even think you ever met those people. You just assumed that they were all your aunts.”
Maddie says that when Rihanna once walked past her in a backstage hallway at an event, she wondered why the singer did not stop.
“Why didn’t she talk to me? That’s my aunt!” Maddie recalls thinking.
“I’m sure she was offended with every pop star not stopping by to see their niece,” Spears says.
“I’m like, ‘You don’t know those people!’”
Maddie says people often wrongly claim that Spears’ pregnancy caused Zoey 101 to end.
“My TikTok is all like, ‘You’re the reason Zoey 101 is over. I can’t believe you made my show end,’” Maddie says.
“I’m not the one that ended Zoey 101, I promise.”
Spears says the timing does not support that claim because she became pregnant months after filming on the series had already finished.
“I’ll repeat it until I’m blue in the face: We were wrapped!” Spears says.
“The contract ended Zoey.”
Spears’ life now looks far different from what critics predicted when she became pregnant at 16.
She married businessman Jamie Watson in 2014.
Four years later, she welcomed her second daughter, Ivey, who is now 8.
Spears continues to act, and season 5 of her Netflix series Sweet Magnolias is currently streaming.
She is also preparing for Maddie to leave for college in August.
“I’m so proud of her and everything she’s done, but I also cry in the car because I’m not going to have my baby home every day,” Spears says.
“She’s always going to be my baby.”
