Sophia Michaels
Jamie Lynn Spears opened up about her “personal” decision to step away from the limelight when she got pregnant at 15.
“That was something I took responsibility for the way that made sense for me,” Spears, now 32, told Hannah Brown on Wednesday’s episode of the “Better Tomorrow” podcast.
Speaking about the backlash she received at the time, the mom of two said, “That doesn’t make sense for everyone else, but it made sense for me and the whole world came down and told me I was the worst human alive for doing so and that every young girl who ever watched my show was going to be ruined because of me and my personal decision.”
At the time, she quit the hit Nickelodeon show “Zoey 101,” which ran from 2005 to 2008, to focus on her pregnancy.
Following her decision to leave the show behind, Spears used her teen pregnancy as a way to start all over again — this time, in the “middle of nowhere” in Mississippi.
She detailed that she got rid of her cell phone and opted for a “house phone” instead. However, she encouraged people to not contact her.
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“I was like, ‘No one call me,’ [and] I put myself on a budget,” she continued to detail. “I had a budget for, like, 10 years that I lived very strictly by and I just wanted to be normal and I just really wanted to be away.”
The actress furthered that she enjoyed going to the store without worrying that the clerks — or anyone, for that matter — would recognize her and sneak a photo.
“Interacting with people like that on a daily basis makes you have a much different outlook whenever a newspaper writes a bad headline about you that’s not true. Like, you know what, that doesn’t matter. These are the people that matter,” she noted.
Spears went on to welcome daughter Maddie, now 15, in June 2008 with ex-boyfriend Casey Aldridge. The “All That” star also shares daughter Ivey Joan, 5, with husband Jamie Watson.
And while Spears briefly stepped away from the spotlight, she has slowly made her comeback to Hollywood, scoring a main role in “Sweet Magnolias.” She is also preparing to head back to Pacific Coast Academy in the film “Zoey 102,” out Thursday.
