Actress, singer and sister of Britney Spears, Jamie Lynn Spears, revealed she experienced pressure to have an abortion when she was pregnant at 16. The 32-year-old contestant on I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! told fellow contestants and viewers about her teen pregnancy. “When I first got pregnant… They didn’t want me to have the baby”, she said.
The mother of two cried as she told fellow contestants that people around her “didn’t want me to have the baby”. Having been on a children’s television show, she spoke about the backlash that she faced when her pregnancy was announced by the media. “The whole world was like, ‘You’re a s**t, you’re horrible your life is over… Because I got pregnant young and I was on a kids’ show”, she shared.
“They didn’t want me to have the baby”
Despite the intense scrutiny of being in the public eye, she decided not to have an abortion and gave birth to her daughter, Maddie Briann Aldridge, who is now 15 years old. Spears also has a second daughter, five-year-old Ivey Joan.
The American actress and sister of Britney Spears, came to fame in 2005 as the protagonist of the children’s television show Zoey 101 and in 2007, she drew the attention of the media when, at age 16, she became pregnant.
Back in 2007, the Nickelodeon star spoke about how much of a shock it was for her and her daughter’s father, Casey Aldridge, to find out they were having a baby. “It was a shock for both of us, so unexpected. I was in complete and total shock and so was he”, she said.
Aware of how much public interest there would be in her pregnancy, then 16-year-old Spears moved to Mississippi and “literally hid”. She recounted how she initially kept the news of her pregnancy to herself so that she would not be influenced by others in her decision to keep her baby. “Only one of my friends knew because I needed to work out what I would do for myself before I let anyone’s opinion affect my decision. Then I told my parents and my friends. I was scared, but I had to do what was right for me”, she shared.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “Jamie Lynn showed great courage in deciding to have her baby at 16. It’s heartbreaking to imagine the difficulties she faced at such a young age, in the public eye, facing the pressure to have an abortion”.
“Sadly, there are too many stories of young mothers facing pressure to have abortions. It seems more appropriate to praise young women, like Jamie Lynn, for their courage to continue their pregnancies in the face of such discrimination”.
