Jamie Lynn Spears Breaks Down In Tears On ‘Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test’ Talking About Daughter’s Near-Death Experience and Relationship With Britney Spears

Jamie Lynn Spears is facing her inner demons on Fox’s Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test, and in the two-hour series premiere on January 4, the 31-year-old actor emotionally addressed the backlash from her teenage pregnancy, recalled a past family tragedy, and opened up about her sister Britney Spears.

The high-intensity survivalist reality show sent the Sweet Magnolias star and 15 other celebrities to Wadi Rum, Jordan, for 10 days of grueling Special Forces-inspired training exercises. Alongside Danny Amendola, Mel B, 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, Spears tested her physical and mental limits under the watch of former Special Forces operatives Rudy Reyes, Mark “Billy” Billingham, Jason “Foxy” Fox, and Remi Adeleke.

In the two-episode premiere, Spears takes on brutal physical challenges like diving backwards off a helicopter into a body of water and sidestepping across two pieces of rope suspended over 100 feet in the air. She also breaks down in tears at several points along the journey and briefly speaks on her big sister Britney, who was released from her highly-criticized 13-year conservatorship in 2021.

When asked what Spears hoped to gain from the Special Forces experience in a round of tactical questioning, she said, “I guess I just want to, for myself, feel like I’m worth something.” After a Directing Staff agent asked the actor why she feels worthless, Spears explained, “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.”

Over the past several years as the #FreeBritney movement gained traction and Britney’s conservatorship struggles became the subject of various documentaries — including Framing Britney Spears, Controlling Britney Spears, Britney Vs. Spears, and more — Jamie Lynn Spears came under fire from her sister’s fans. The two sparred on social media after Jamie Lynn gave an ABC News interview, which aired on Good Morning America and Nightline. And the younger Spears sister was also bashed by Britney fans on TikTok after her Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test casting was announced.

In a confessional, Spears elaborated about her layered feelings on her sisterhood, saying, “I’m extremely proud of my sister, but also have my own identity and expect to be seen as my own person. I struggle with self esteem all the time, and as a parent, you really want to fake it because you don’t want to ever see your children feel the feelings that you feel.”

Throughout the premiere, Spears also opened up about the public’s perception of her, the challenges of motherhood, and her daughter’s near-death experience in 2017. “Anything high intensity around water is definitely going to bring back the worst experience I’ve ever lived through,” Spears said in a confessional ahead of her helicopter plunge. After emerging from the water post-helicopter drop, Spears started vomiting and sobbing. “This reminds me of rescuing my daughter…” she cried. “I didn’t know it would affect me like that.”

When Spears’ oldest daughter Maddie, now 14, was eight years old, her ATV crashed in a pond and left her submerged underwater for several minutes. “When I had to save my daughter — or try to save her — from an accident, I had to propel myself into a pond,” Spears tearfully told Directing Staff agents during the round of Special Forces tactical questioning. “I didn’t realize how much your body remembers things.”

In a confessional, Spears explained, “My eight-year-old was in an accident where she drowned and I immediately dive in and I couldn’t get her up. The paramedic jumps right into the water, they pull her out, and then they laid her beside me. She wasn’t breathing. She was blue. And it was bad. And all I kept thinking about was seeing her not breathing. They were working on her and then they got a pulse.”

A Directing Staff agent encouraged Spears to fight her demons and leave the past in the past, but she was so shaken up by the physical challenge that she had a sleepless night and woke up wanting to head home. “I just feel like I’m being a shitty mom — like I shouldn’t just leave my kids like that,” Spears explained to her fellow recruits. “I can not handle being this far away from them I’m not cut out for it.”

“The thought of being away from my kids…I think it probably goes back to a lot of things,” Spears told cameras. “I was 16 and pregnant and I was on the cover of a magazine being called a slut and a whore. It’s my own battle within to be a good mom, and I do think that stems from being told I wouldn’t be.”

Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test contestants can only leave the course is by handing in their armbands and self-eliminating or being unable to compete due to injury, and at the end of the premiere — though several contestants headed home — Spears remained. Tune in next week to see how long she sticks it out, and what other demons she confronts.

New episodes of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test air on Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. ET on Fox.