Jamie Lynn Spears Tearfully Self-Eliminates From ‘Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test’ on Day 2: “It Makes Me Feel Like A Crap Mom”

After an emotional, tear-filled two days in Wadi Rum, Jordan, Jamie Lynn Spears handed in her armband and left Fox’s Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test.

At the start of Episode 3, “Mindset,” which aired on Wednesday, January 11, Spears told fellow contestant Mel B that she couldn’t make it another day filming and wanted to head home early. “I miss my children if I’m away from them for like a couple of hours, I miss them,” the 31-year-old actor shared in a confessional. “So this is a very big leap for me.”

The Spice Girl offered to listen to and help Spears get through the journey if she stayed, but Spears made up her mind and sought out a Directing Staff (DS) agent to hand in her arm band. “Why you crying?” the agent asked before she committed to leaving the course. “My babies,” she cried.

When pressed about her decision to duck out of the challenge early, Spears told cameras, “It probably goes back to a lot of things. 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.” Spears broke down in tears, took off her wristband, and headed home.

Though the actor’s early exit may have surprised viewers, it certainly didn’t phase the DS agent. “
We as DS know when someone’s going to quit. We see recruits stuck inside their own brains feeling sorry for themselves, and once they get to that point there is no turning back,” the agent told cameras.

The high-stakes reality follows 16 celebrities who signed up for 10 days of grueling Special Forces-inspired training exercises. In addition to Spears and Mel B, Danny Amendola, Hannah Brown, Tyler Florence, Kate Gosselin, Dwight Howard, Montell Jordan, Gus Kenworthy, Nastia Liukin, Carli Lloyd, Beverley Mitchell, Kenya Moore, Mike Piazza, Dr. Drew Pinsky, and Anthony Scaramucci headed to the desert to test their strength. But unlike typical reality competition shows, Special Forces contestants must self-eliminate or be deemed unable to compete due to an injury to leave the course. Since Spears left with eight days of selection left, that means she called it quits on Day 2, becoming the fifth recruit to leave the course.

In the two-episode Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test premiere, Spears emotionally addressed everything from her teenage pregnancy and her daughter’s near-death experience to feelings about her sister Britney Spears. “It just feels like every time I work really hard to get something on my own it’s like it’s not really worth it. I mean, growing up, my sister became famous — worldwide famous — when I was very young…And so I was so proud of her. I love her to death. And then, I don’t know. I just feel like sometimes I don’t really know how to have anything for myself,” Spears told DS agents in the premiere.

After the first physical challenge, which required recruits to dive backwards off a helicopter into a body of water, Spears struggled with flashbacks of her daughter drowning and had a sleepless night. “I just feel like I’m being a shitty mom — like I shouldn’t just leave my kids like that,” Spears told her fellow recruits. “I can not handle being this far away from them I’m not cut out for it.”

Since the premiere aired, Britney Spears addressed Jamie Lynn’s tears and on-air comments in an outraged (now deleted) Instagram post. It’s worth noting that Britney fans questioned Jamie Lynn’s casting on the show from the start, so it will be interesting to see how people react to her early self-elimination this week.

New episodes of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test air on Wednesdays at 9:00 p.m. ET on Fox.