It’s pretty clear by now that Britney Spears and her younger sister, Jamie Lynn Spears, are really going to have to do some work if they want to repair their fractured sibling bond. Ever since the pop star spoke out against her conservatorship in court last summer, it became more and more obvious that she blamed the bulk of her immediate family for the horrible treatment she reportedly suffered under that court order, which she was finally released from in November after about 13 years. The public fight between Britney and her sister has only grown recently, but now Jamie Lynn has offered sympathy to Britney over her breakup with Justin Timberlake.
How Jamie Lynn Spears Felt About Britney Spears And Justin Timberlake Breaking Up
Jamie Lynn Spears has been making the rounds for several days now, to promote her newly released memoir, Things I Should Have Said, and in a recent chat with the Call Her Daddy podcast, spoke a lot about growing up in her family and how things changed as Britney became famous. Spears was asked how Britney’s breakup with Justin Timberlake affected her, and the Sweet Magnolias actress answered:
I think everyone thought it was forever. I was so sad, first off because my sister was so sad, but that, too, was the first time I saw [that] maybe I didn't know everything about the relationship. Perhaps they were protecting me and obviously why would they talk to me about anything.
One thing is for sure, and that is that no one outside of a relationship really knows much about the inner workings of a particular pairing, as sometimes even those within the romance are in the dark about certain aspects of it. So, Spears is probably correct that the extent of whatever happened would have been kept between Timberlake and her sister, not just because this is how it usually is, but also because she (at 10 years her junior) was still very young.
As Spears noted, she wasn’t the only one who’d had high hopes for the romance, as it did seem to be a celebrity coupling that was basically meant-to-be to a number of fans. Unfortunately, Spears noted just how attached she was to not just her sister dating Timberlake, but to him in general. In her book she actually calls Timberlake “one of the first healthy, male father figures” in her life, because “he was pretty thoughtful” and also “really funny,” which was a big change from life with their alcoholic father, and their parents’ “tumultuous” relationship.
How Jamie Lynn Spears Looks At Their Breakup Now
Of course, that breakup and the “Cry Me a River” shockwaves from it are still being discussed nearly 20 full years later, mostly because of the negative impact it had on Britney Spears life, while Timberlake seemed to be the totally wronged party who only garnered more and more sympathy and hit records (to the point where he felt the need to publicly apologize to Spears in 2021). After noting how her sister was held to a different standard when all of the cheating rumors (which Britney Spears seems to sing about in her 2004 single, “Everytime”) started, the younger Spears said:
Seeing how heartbreaking it must have been for my sister when “Cry Me a River” came out. Don't get me wrong, like, that's a way to launch your solo career, right? That's a way to do it, but I felt really sad. And my sister, she wrote that song “Everytime” and she's beyond brilliant with anything creative and she picked that song out on the piano and she wrote it and it still makes me cry because I think about how heartbroken she was, because that was her song and that was his song.
While the whole situation surrounding Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake’s breakup is unfortunate on many levels, hopefully Jamie Lynn Spears opening up on her feelings about it will offer the sisters some common ground on which they can finally begin to grow closer again.
