Jamie Lynn Spears, the younger sister of Britney Spears, has spoken to Glamour magazine in a revealing interview, in which she tells of her struggles, becoming a teen mother, under the glare of the media spotlight and how she retreated from that scrutiny, before relocating to Nashville and trying to start a music career.
In the interview, Jamie Lynn tells Wendy Shanker how, after filming the Nickelodeon show Zoey 101, she wanted to "go home to Louisiana and finish high school, be a cheerleader, all that." Her plans, though, were interrupted when she was pregnant by her then-boyfriend Casey Aldridge. She was 16 at the time. Jamie Lynn says in the interview that she "hated" that the tabloids accused her of glamourising teen pregnancy, when she gave the interview to OK! Magazine. In her words, she wanted to "give an explanation to my fans, and I wanted it to be in my words first. I had to make a decision that I could sleep with every night." Spears goes on to say that the MTV show Teen Mom gave her hope in times of despair, knowing that others were experiencing the same difficulties as her: "I feel for those girls. I've been that girl. It does show that motherhood is hard."
After giving birth to her daughter, Maddie, Jamie Lynn decided to move away to "a town in the middle of nowhere and just raise my child" and she says that being a mother has helped her to relate to her older sister, Britney, who has children of her own. She goes on to say that her subsequent move to Nashville has been a musical college education of her own and says she's been "learning from the best musicians." As she approaches her 21st birthday she is hoping to launch her own music career, from the capital of Country music.