Britney Spears responded to comments from 15-year-old son Jayden James in an interview recently broadcast on ’60 Minutes Australia’.
“Jayden, while you’re undermining my behavior, just like my whole family has always done with, ‘I hope she gets better, I’ll pray for her’… Pray for what?” said the superstar, 40, in a voice memo shared via Instagram on Monday.
“I keep working so I can pay off [my mother Lynne Spears’] legal fees and her home,” Britney continued, then suggesting that Jayden’s “hateful” comments were rooted in a fear that her financial obligations would soon end.
Jayden will turn 16 on September 12, while his older brother, Sean Preston, will turn 17 on September 14. Britney shares both teenage boys with ex-husband Kevin Federline, who also took part in the “60 Minutes Australia” interview.
“Do you want me to get well so I can keep giving your father $40,000 a month?” said the “Toxic” singer, acknowledging her current contributions. “Or is the reasoning behind your decision to be hateful because it’s basically over in two years and you’re not getting anything?”
Jayden told celebrity interviewer Daphne Barak that he and Preston – who skipped her June wedding to husband Sam Asghari – no longer spend time with their mother, but hope to reunite with her in the future when she “[gets] mentally better.”
Britney told Jayden via Instagram that she needs “unconditional love and support” from her family, not disparaging comments about her mental state.
“It saddens me that not one of you has valued me as a person,” she said. “You’ve seen how my family has been to me and that’s all you know. Like I said, I feel like all of you secretly like to say there’s something wrong with me.”
The Grammy winner also shared her memory of a conversation she had with Jayden before he and Preston decided not to see their mother again.
“I will say it. I sat in that kitchen and looked you straight in the eye, pretty boy, and said, ‘How come I can’t see you anymore? Or do you just see you more often? I look forward to seeing you weekly,” she said. “You said, ‘Mommy, oh, it’s going to change.'”
Britney explained, “You and your brother always let me in that house two hours early. Preston would sleep. You would play the piano all the time. And if I hadn’t showered you with presents and great food ready and played a motherf-king saint, it would still never be good enough.”
The pop icon seemed to blame her estranged father, Jamie Spears, for her current dynamic with Jayden and Sean. Jamie, 70, implemented the nearly 14-year-old conservatory that governed his famous daughter’s life before ending it in November 2021.
“Honestly, my dad should be in jail for the rest of his life,” Britney said, a sentiment she has shared before.
Jayden defended Jamie in the “60 Minutes Australia” interview and emphasized that he had Britney’s best interests in mind in determining the restrictive legal settlement.
It should be noted that in 2019 Jamie was slapped with a three-year restraining order for domestic violence following an alleged incident involving Preston that kept him out of contact with his grandsons. Additionally, when Jayden spoke out in a March 2020 Instagram Live session, he called his grandfather “a pretty big dk” who could “go to die”.
Britney concluded her Monday message by saying that her family’s reluctance to end her guardianship – and spending four months in a mental institution against her will – has halted her belief in a higher power.
“God wouldn’t let that happen to me if there was a God,” she declared. “I no longer believe in God because of the way my children and my family have treated me. There is nothing left to believe in. I am an atheist, all of you.”