In less than a week, fans will be able to go back to PCA when the much-anticipated Zoey 101 sequel movie, Zoey 102, finally premieres on Paramount+. The film will see Jamie Lynn Spears reprise her role as the titular Zoey Brooks, and some other stars from the hit early-2000s Nickelodeon series are set to return too. The show originally ended in 2008, and at the time, people couldn’t help but notice it was around the time that Spears was expecting and as a teenager. Now the actress is opening up about what it was like getting pregnant at the end of Zoey 101 and the major backlash she received.
While getting pregnant as a teen already turns heads, going through it in the public eye at the height of a career and while on a children’s network surely makes it even harder. Even though some people thought Zoey 101 ended because Jamie Lynn Spears got pregnant, it’s been confirmed that the network already planned to end the series beforehand. The Sweet Magnolias star told Variety that when the series wrapped, she felt it was time to get off-grid after finding out she was pregnant, even if it meant turning down scripts. She explained:
I think when I wrapped ‘Zoey,’ there were all these plans of things like, ‘Let’s go do movies.’ I was reading scripts for things I was excited about. But like a lot of young girls, I thought I was in love. And there I am, pregnant at 16. I was so concerned about bringing another human being into this world, but I needed to figure out who I was.
Spears was mostly out of the public eye for a few years after she had her first daughter, and while it couldn’t have been easy for her, it sounds like she did what was best for both her and her baby. However, the press and fans didn’t exactly make it easy for her. As one would expect, the former Nickelodeon star got quite a lot of backlash about it, but she wouldn’t change what she did, as she said:
And the press wasn’t exactly very nice. I wanted to get as far away from it as I could. So I got a house in Mississippi. I put up a gate, put myself on a budget, and said, ‘I’m gonna raise my baby back here.’ And that’s what I did for a while. But I also wanted to show her that I could provide for her future and that I could continue on to be what I wanted to be. Bringing her into my life was not something that I regret or held me back.
Even though trolls come with the territory when you’re in the public eye, I imagine it’s hard to move past them, especially when you’re trying to protect your family. Now with two kids and a continuing acting career, she is doing it all. She even briefly returned to Nickelodeon for the Double Dare reboot in 2018, with her daughter, no less.
Spears made her official return to the entertainment industry in 2013, five years after Zoey 101 ended. Since then, she’s put out a record, candid interviews, and even a controversial memoir that wasn't received well by her sister Britney. Most recently, she was one of the contestants on Fox’s Special Forces, and she is part of the cast of Sweet Magnolias, which just dropped Season 3 on Netflix. Now she is gearing up for her return as Zoey in Zoey 102.
Fans will be able to see Jamie Lynn Spears as Zoey Brooks once again when they stream the upcoming film Zoey 102, which premieres Thursday, July 27, and will be available through a Paramount+ subscription. All four seasons of Zoey 101 are also available on the streamer.
