Jamie Lynn Spears knows that you still blame her and her pregnancy for the end of Zoey 101. But she's back to not only set the record straight, but also to shower fans of the Nickelodeon show with gifts (more on that later).
In a new interview with Nylon, Spears opened up about getting pregnant at 16 with her high school sweetheart Casey Aldridge. (I'd be remiss not to underscore the revelation that she felt her first wave of morning sickness while auditioning for Bella in Twilight, but I digress). Zoey 101 aired from 2005 to 2008, and Spears found out about her pregnancy about six months after it wrapped. After that, she "hid away" from the public eye for five years. “That was on purpose,” Spears said.
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“In today's world, immediately I'd have my social media to post something, and it'd be cleared up,” she said. “But even today, people still have their thoughts about it [...] But the show had already wrapped and there was never a negotiation to go into any more seasons. We were too old. It was done.”
At the time, however, she cared less about what fans thought and more about how her family would react. She said she was terrified of telling her family the surprising news. “You have your first love, or what you call love in high school. You think it's forever, and then, oh my gosh, I'm pregnant," said Spears. "I am mortified to have to tell my parents this and my family this. I do not care what TMZ thinks about it. There's a human being growing inside of me, and I'm so young, I'm almost a baby myself.’
“I got me a little house. I put a big gate up around it, and I was like, ‘I’m going to stay here, raise my baby and figure this out because this is real life," Spears continued. "I’ve put myself in this situation, I’m not condoning it or saying it’s right, but these are the cards that I have to play.’ And I tried to do the best that I could.”
Spears split from Aldridge in 2010, and later married her husband of six years, Jamie Watson. Along with her first child with Aldridge, Maddie (now 12), she and Watson have a 2-year-old girl named Ivey.
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And now, she's back in full-force, with a release of "Follow Me," the Zoey 101 theme song she wrote alongside big sister Britney Spears in 2004, coming on October 22. The cast reunited and have a future Zoey 101 reboot in the works. And if that's not enough Jamie Lynn for you, she's starring in the second season of Netflix’s Sweet Magnolias.
How it started: How it’s going:#Zoey101 #FollowMeZoey101 pic.twitter.com/LSispXUMPt
— Jamie Lynn Spears (@jamielynnspears) October 19, 2020
Good to see that at least someone is thriving. Hopefully we can get justice for Zoey and Chase next.
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