On Wednesday, Jamie Lynn Spears went on Good Morning America to promote her upcoming memoir, Things I Should Have Said. During the interview, she opened up about her complicated relationship with sister Britney Spears and admitted that they are not currently on speaking terms. Following the interview, Britney took to Twitter to respond to claims her sister made in the book and on television.
In the interview, it’s mentioned that Jamie Lynn’s memoir details an incident where Britney allegedly took a knife, said she was scared, and locked herself and Jamie Lynn in a room.
When asked why she decided to include the alleged incident in the book, Jamie Lynn said she simply wanted to highlight her own history of panic attacks. “First off, I think that experiencing my own panic attacks and how sometimes we can feel in those moments is important,” she said. “But also it’s important to remember that I was a kid in that moment. I was scared.”
Though reporter Juju Chang also noted that Jamie Lynn uses the words “erratic,” “paranoid,” and “spiraling” to describe her sister in the book, Jamie Lynn declined to comment on Britney’s current state of mind. “I can’t really speak to anyone else’s state of mind. I don’t think that’s fair,” she said.
In Britney’s lengthy Twitter response, she wrote, “The 2 things that did bother me that my sister said was how my behavior was out of control. She never was around me much 15 years ago at that time… so why are they even talking about that unless she wants to sell a book at my expense?”
At another point in the interview, Chang brought up the fact that Britney was vocal about not approving of her sister’s performance at the 2017 Radio Disney Music Awards. During the performance, Jamie Lynn was part of a remix medley featuring Britney’s songs, and she sang “Till The World Ends.”
Britney wrote in an Instagram post last July, “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 !!!! This conservatorship killed my dreams…” As she explained in the post, she wasn’t allowed to perform remixes of her songs, so to see her sister Jamie Lynn do so was hurtful.
Jamie Lynn told Chang she didn’t know why Britney was so upset over a performance that was meant to honor her legacy.
In her response to the interview, Britney explained,“When the lady mentioned why did she accuse you of doing remixes to her songs…I know it may sound like a silly thing to most people but I wrote a lot of my songs and my sister was the baby. She never had to work for anything. Everything was always given to her!!!”
Britney ended her statement by writing, “Psss lesson learned from all this don’t trust people or anyone…make your cats and dogs your family and take care of your own damn self!!!!”
Jamie Lynn responded to Britney’s statement with a post of her own on Instagram. It reads, in part:
Last thing I want to be doing is this, but here we are…It’s hard to see these posts, as I know the world also feels. I just wish her well. Brit, I am always here, you know behind the scenes I have always been here. It’s become exhausting when conversations, and texts we have in private don’t match what you post on social media. I know you’re going through a lot and I never want to diminish that, but I also can’t diminish myself.
Quite frankly, the things being said are absolutely not the truth, and I have to clarify that, because now it’s getting harder for me to rationalize to my oldest daughter why our family continues to get death threats, as a result of their aunt’s vague and accusatory posts, especially when we know she could tell the truth, and put an end to all of it in one second if she wanted to.
You can read Jamie Lynn’s statement in full here.
UPDATE, 1:55 P.M. CST: Britney responded to Jamie Lynn’s statement on Twitter, writing:
Jamie Lynn…congrats babe! You’ve stooped to a whole new level of LOW…I’ve never been around you ever with a knife or would i ever even think to do such!!! The only knife I ever saw you with at home was cutting the biggest pieces of squash I ever saw in my life and it was way too big for me to cut…So please, please stop with these lies for the Hollywood books!!! NOW and only NOW I do know only a scum person would make up such things about someone…I’m actually very confused about you making that up because it’s honestly not like you at all!!! Around the kids???? Jamie Lynn, seriously?? Come on!!! Congrats on introducing your older sister the concept of getting LOW…LOWER…LOWEST…because you win on that one, babe!