Britney Spears Says She's 'Working to Feel More Compassion' for Sister Jamie Lynn amid Strained Relationship

Britney Spears writes in her memoir 'The Woman in Me' that Jamie Lynn "will always be my sister, and I love her and her beautiful family"

Britney Spears is reflecting on her tumultuous relationship with sister Jamie Lynn Spears, with whom she’s both publicly feuded and seemingly made amends with in recent years.

The “Hold Me Closer” singer, 41, writes in her new memoir The Woman in Me that she often felt protective over Jamie Lynn, 32, while growing up — but the two eventually grew apart, and Britney felt hurt by Jamie Lynn’s alleged participation in the conservatorship she was under for 13 years.

“She will always be my sister, and I love her and her beautiful family. I’m working to feel more compassion than anger toward her, and everyone who I feel has wronged me. It’s not that easy,” Britney writes.

In her book, the Grammy winner says that growing up in Kentwood, Louisiana, the younger Jamie Lynn “ruled the roost” and left Britney feeling like a “ghost child” to parents Jamie and Lynne.

“I can remember walking into the room and feeling like no one even saw me,” Britney writes. “Jamie Lynn only saw the TV. My mother, who at one time had been the person I was closest to in the world, was on another planet... I’d listen to her spew these hateful words, and I’d turn to my mother and say, ‘Are you going to let this little witch talk to you like that?’ I mean, she was bad.”

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Still, Britney felt like a second mother to Jamie Lynn, who followed in her sister’s footsteps and pursued a career in show business, rising to fame as the star of Nickelodeon's Zoey 101 in 2005.

In her book, Britney recalls an incident in which she had “words” with one of Jamie Lynn’s costars on the set of the show after her sister “complained” about the actress; upon reflection, the singer says she has since learned the girl was “innocent” and offers an apology (Actress Alexa Nikolas, who played Nicole on the show, has since spoken out about the same incident and called it “traumatizing” ).

Britney also reveals that when Jamie Lynn got pregnant at age 16, she was not told by her family, and learned of her sister’s pregnancy through the tabloids. (Jamie Lynn gave birth to daughter Maddie, now 15, at 17 years old. She married businessman Jamie Watson in 2014, and the two share daughter Ivey, 5).

Tension continued to build between Britney and Jamie Lynn after the “Toxic” singer was put under a conservatorship in 2008 and placed in a mental health facility in 2018, prompting her to text Jamie Lynn for help getting out.

Britney claims that Jamie Lynn texted back, “Stop fighting it… There’s nothing you can do about it, so stop fighting it.”

“This will sound crazy, but I’ll say it again because it’s the truth: I thought they were going to try to kill me. I didn’t understand how Jamie Lynn and our father had developed such a good relationship,” Britney writes. “She knew I was reaching out to her for help and that she was dogging me. I felt like she should have taken my side.”

A rep for Jamie Lynn did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.

In a 2022 interview with PEOPLE amid the release of her memoir Things I Should Have Said, Jamie Lynn said that as an adult, she’d been asked to be a part of Britney’s conservatorship, but ultimately declined the opportunity “nicely.” Court documents indicate that Jamie Lynn was appointed as trustee of Britney’s multimillion-dollar estate in 2018 but never filled the role.

When Britney’s conservatorship was terminated in 2021, she writes that she felt an array of emotions, including betrayal from her family.

“My sister and I should have found comfort in each other, but unfortunately that hasn’t been the case,” she writes. “As I was fighting the conservatorship and receiving a lot of press attention, she was writing a book capitalizing on it. She rushed out salacious stories about me, many of them hurtful and outrageous.”

Though Britney lashed out at Jamie Lynn amid the January 2022 release of her book (and issued her sister a cease-and-desist letter to keep her from “derogatorily” referencing Britney during her book tour), Britney’s tone seemed to have softened by December 2022, when she posted a tribute to Jamie Lynn on her own birthday.

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“It’s my b-day, but you’re my heart, so I’m thinking about you,” Britney wrote on social media. "Congratulations on being so brave, inspiring, and showing guts and glory in your show 🎉 !!! You ain't alone … if anybody knows what that feels like … I get it 🤧🤧🤧 My baby sister !!! I love you !!!"

Jamie Lynn has repeatedly said she supports Britney, and in her interview last year with PEOPLE said she’s “only ever tried to be helpful, so any notion that says the contrary is just completely ridiculous.”

“I love and I support my sister, and I always will. It’s very clear that this has been a painful process, and I have to respect however she works through that,” she said. “I didn’t have a say when [the conservatorship] happened. My sister was going through a hard time, I was still a child, and that’s what everybody, I think, forgets: I was just a kid going through my own crap.”

She continued: "I just wanted to remain her sister, very simply. It's unfortunate that I've been grouped into this, but the facts are I had nothing to do with anything."

Ahead of her book's release, Britney discussed it in an interview over email with PEOPLE.

“Over the past 15 years or even at the start of my career, I sat back while people spoke about me and told my story for me,” she says. “After getting out of my conservatorship, I was finally free to tell my story without consequences from the people in charge of my life.”

The Woman in Me is due Oct. 24 via Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. It is now available for pre-order.

For more of the exclusive excerpt and interview with Britney Spears, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands everywhere Friday.

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