Britney Spears' Fans Slam Jamie Lynn Spears Over British Reality TV Debut

Jamie Lynn Spears has been criticized on social media for failing to mention her famous sister, Britney Spears, as she made her debut on jungle-themed British reality show I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! over the weekend.

The Zoey 101 star was seen making her way to the Australian jungle with a host of British celebrities as the season premiere aired in the U.K. on Sunday. And when she introduced herself to viewers in a pre-recorded video, Jamie Lynn Spears said that she was "best known for being an actress and singer."

Explaining her reasons for going on the show, the mother of two said: "There is literally every misconception you can have on a person about me so I don't take any of it seriously. But I do think going on I'm A Celebrity will be a nice way for people to see the real me. This is an opportunity to be myself and do something really cool and have some awesome experiences in the meantime."

With the show seeing the public vote for contestants to take part in hair-raising trials to earn food rations for the camp, Jamie Lynn Spears also admitted she was "scared of everything," adding: "Absolutely every one of these trials I am dreading. I haven't looked at any of them and thought, 'Oh cool, I could do that one.'"

The Mississippi-born, Louisiana-raised TV personality's debut on the show comes weeks after Britney Spears released her tell-all memoir, The Woman In Me, in which she accused her younger sister of having behaved like a "total b****."

While Britney Spears, who was released from a 13-year conservatorship in late 2021, was reported to have reconciled with her sister in recent months, many fans of the singer have continued to express their distaste for Jamie Lynn Spears.

This spilled over into Sunday's I'm a Celebrity season premiere, where Jamie Lynn Spears appeared to make efforts to avoid mentioning her pop star sister.

When U.K. TV presenter and fellow contestant Josie Gibson asked Jamie Lynn Spears who got her into music, she responded: "I've always kind of been into music, you know what I mean? Writing and singing and that sort of stuff."

Gibson then said that the American star was from a "very musical family," and further pushed on who may have inspired her, prompting Jamie Lynn Spears to respond: "My mom played the piano a lot."

As the episode aired, a host of viewers took to X, formerly Twitter, to express their distaste at Jamie Lynn Spears not mentioning her "Toxic" hitmaker sister.

"Jamie Lynn Spears—'I'm best known for being an actress and a singer.' No [you're] best known for being Britney Spears' sister," wrote one.

Commented another: "Things Jamie Lynn Spears is known for in the correct order
1. Being Britney's sister, 2. Ruining Zoey 101 by getting pregnant, 3. Being on Zoey 101."

"Jamie Lynn Spears saying she's best known for being an actress and singer is like me saying I'm known for being mentally stable. A downright lie," said another viewer.

Showing a meme of a baffled man, another asked: "Wait Jamie Lynn Spears when someone said she's from a musical family really said her [mom] plays the piano???"

Pointing out Jamie Lynn Spears' quick succession of reality shows, another viewer remarked that she "signed up to a series of Dancing With The Stars and that same series is STILL GOING and now she's down in the jungle already."

To illustrate their point, the X user added a GIF of Dan Levy's Schitt's Creek character, David Rose, saying: "This is feeling a little desperate."

Jamie Lynn Spears faced a wave of backlash from her sister's fans when she made her debut on Dancing with the Stars in September.

The TV personality and her dance partner, Alan Bersten, were the second pair to be eliminated from the ballroom competition at the start of October.

Amid the criticism aimed at Jamie Lynn Spears over the weekend, there have been a few social media users who have spoken out in her defense.

"The irony of everyone being so concerned about Britney's mental health but bullying Jamie Lynn Spears just shows you're all toxic, weird, fickle pricks," wrote one ahead of the new I'm A Celebrity season. "Sure Britney would not appreciate the vile tweets against her baby sister regardless of their PERSONAL relationship."

Newsweek has contacted a representative of Jamie Lynn Spears via email for comment.

The Spears sisters publicly exchanged statements aimed at one another more than 18 months ago, after Jamie Lynn Spears discussed a tattered relationship with the pop star while promoting her memoir, Things I Should Have Said.

In one Instagram post in early 2022, Britney Spears called her younger sister a "selfish little brat." The post was in reaction to Jamie Lynn Spears' appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast, during which she said that the "Toxic" singer had offered to buy their mother, Lynne Spears, a house if she divorced their father, Jamie Spears.

Around that time, a lawyer for Britney Spears issued a cease and desist letter demanding that Jamie Lynn Spears stop talking about her during interviews—with legal action threatened should she refuse to comply.

In The Woman in Me, Britney Spears wrote that she felt let down by her sister in recent years.

"As I was fighting the conservatorship and receiving a lot of press attention, she was writing a book capitalizing on it," said the singer. "She rushed out salacious stories about me, many of them hurtful and outrageous. I was really let down.

"Shouldn't sisters be able to confess their fear or vulnerability to each other without that later being used as evidence of instability? I couldn't help but feel that she wasn't aware of what I'd been through. It appeared that she thought it had been easy for me because so much fame had come to me so young, and that she blamed me for my success and everything that came with it."

Despite this, Britney Spears said that her sister had "clearly suffered" as well while growing up in their family home.

"She grew up a child of divorce, which I did not," the star wrote. "It seems that she didn't get a lot of parenting, and I know it was hard to try to sing and act and make her own way in the world in the shadow of a sibling who got not only most of the family's attention but a lot of the world's. My heart goes out to her for all those reasons."