“I didn’t want to be around the paparazzi and that stuff,” the “Zoey 101” star said.

Why Jamie Lynn Spears left Hollywood for ‘the middle of nowhere’ as a teen mom to raise daughter

"I didn't want to be around the paparazzi and that stuff," the "Zoey 101" star said.

By Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at **. He began writing for EW in 2022.

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June 19, 2026 6:34 p.m. ET

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Jamie Lynn Spears. Credit:

Jamie Lynn Spears/Instagram

- Jamie Lynn Spears said that she left Hollywood for Mississippi because she "didn't want to be around the paparazzi."

- Spears moved across the country when she became pregnant at 16.

- The *Zoey 101* star said that the media called her "The biggest letdown in the world" because of her pregnancy.

Jamie Lynn Spears is reflecting on her decision to leave Hollywood.

The *Zoey 101* alum explained the negative media attention she received when she became pregnant at 16 in 2007 in a new interview with PEOPLE alongside her daughter Maddie.

"Whenever I became pregnant, that was the first time that I was like, 'Oh my gosh, this is a real life decision. This isn't just some work decision I'm making,'" Spears remembered. "And I was already scared and I knew how embarrassed and like unideal this was for everyone involved, including my family. So to have that decision be so scrutinized, which I wasn't telling anybody what they should or shouldn't do with their body. I was just saying, 'This is what I have to do for me. This is what I want to do.'"

Maddie Aldridge and Jamie Lynn Spears.

Jamie Lynn Spears/Instagram

When Spears decided to carry the pregnancy to term, she received massive criticism from the press. "I made a choice, and I was called 'The biggest letdown in the world,'" she said. "It was on every big news station, everywhere I went. And I was like, 'Okay, thanks guys. I know. Can you not?' And that would never fly today. People would be absolutely canceled for saying those things."

Spears said that she relocated to the American South in order to reduce the media attention she received. "I moved to the middle of nowhere — actually, Mississippi, even in the further middle of nowhere, 'cause I didn't want to be around the paparazzi and that stuff," she said, noting that she still was bombarded by cameras when she left California. "That didn't stop. There was at least, like, 15 to 20 paparazzi [that] followed me everywhere I went in the middle of nowhere."

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The *Sweet Magnolias* actress suggested that giving birth and moving to Mississippi helped clarify her priorities. "It just kind of made it more clear like what I wanted to do," she said. "An innocent child is being brought into the world. Whether she knows it or not, we should have some care about what we're saying about the future of other people's children. And to me that was important — I wanted her to have a mom she was proud of."

Spears emphasized creating a sense of normality for her daughter. "I feel like I overdid it in some ways because I wanted her to have such a normal childhood," she explained. "Sometimes I probably overextended that."

Jamie Lynn Spears in West Hollywood, Calif., on June 22, 2023.

Charley Gallay/Getty

However, having Britney Spears as an aunt led to a little confusion for Maddie as a youngster. "She did think like all pop stars were her aunt," Spears recalled, laughing. "She was like, 'Aunt Gaga! Aunt RiRi!'" she says. "I was like, 'No, no, no, no. That's not how this works.' I don't even think you ever met those people. You just assumed that they were all your aunts."

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Spears said that her daughter didn't understand why other A-list pop stars didn't treat her like a relative. "You go to these different events and award shows and like we're just like in the back," the *All That** *star explained. "I'm sure like [Maddie was] offended that every pop star is not stopping by to see their niece, for goodness sakes. I'm like, 'You don't know those people. They don't know you.'"

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