Jamie Lynn Spears, the younger sister of Britney Spears, quit the British reality TV show I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! after an episode that left her sobbing on multiple occasions.
A spokesperson for I’m a Celebrity said the Zoey 101 and Sweet Magnolias star left “on medical grounds,” adding, “She’s been a fantastic campmate who has triumphed at trials and bonded well with her fellow celebrities.”
I’m a Celebrity, which airs on ITV, strands a group of A- (and B- and C-) listers in the Australian outback with few provisions for survival. Spears—among the most famous names in this season’s cast—is set to make her final appearance on the show during Wednesday’s episode.
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Since her arrival at camp, Spears’ attitude has been the subject of both memes and tabloid reporting. Viewers have had endless fun cracking jokes about her frequent crying on the show, while The Sun reported earlier this month that the show’s crew was on “high alert,” worried that a “miserable” Spears might quit.
Viewers (and the show’s hosts) also mocked the 32-year-old actress for avoiding any mention of her sister when asked directly about her “musical family” and her interest in performing. Hosts Ant McPartlin and Dec Donnelly poked fun at Spears’ refusal to name-check Britney by boasting that she was “maybe best known for having one of the most famous siblings in the world”—“the Bryan Spears.” (Bryan is Britney and Jamie Lynn’s older brother.)
Following her long-simmering public feud with her older sister, Spears has been making the reality rounds this year. First, she showed up on the sadistic Fox reality show Special Forces and self-eliminated by day two. When asked why she was quitting early, Spears referenced her children.
“It probably goes back to a lot of things,” she said at the time. “Not only do I just love them and want to be with them, but also being away from them like this, even just for myself, it makes me feel like a crap mom, you know? They didn’t ask for their mom to be gone.” This fall, however, Spears joined the cast of Dancing with the Stars—where she got eliminated in week two.
Although Spears seemed to avoid any mention of her sister for most of her time on I’m a Celebrity, she did share a little insight during one recent episode.
“I’ve been the one person in her life—and she can say this—I never took anything from her,” Spears said of her sister. When asked whether she thought Britney might be watching her on the show, she replied, “I think she’s probably checking in on me heavily. I do think she’s probably like, ‘Why would she do that?’ She was asking me that before I came here. She was like, ‘You’re really gonna do it?!’”
During that conversation, Spears also tried to quell some of the drama surrounding their relationship.
“Me and her throw down. The world’s seen that,” she said. “... I’ve learned to stop talking about it publicly, but you know what? Families fight. Listen, we just do it better than most.”
