Mental health charity declines donation from Jamie Lynn Spears

Jamie Lynn Spears’s offer to donate some of the proceeds from her forthcoming memoir to a mental health organisation has been declined after a backlash.

The younger sister of Britney Spears announced last week that she had finished writing her book, Things I Should Have Said. Due out from Hachette’s Christian imprint Worthy Books in January, it will be a “portrait of a wife, momma, sister, daughter, actress and musician doing the best she could to show up for herself and teach her daughters to have the courage to love every part of themselves, too”, according to the publisher.

Writing on Instagram that she hoped the book would help “anyone else out there who forgot their worth, lost their voice, or is trying to break an unhealthy cycle in their life”, Spears said that a portion of the proceeds would be going to the non-profit organisation This Is My Brave, “because I know how scary it can be to share personal struggles, especially if you don’t feel you have the support or a safe space to do so, and they are doing amazing work to support and encourage people as they bravely share their experiences”.

This Is My Brave was started by Jennifer Marshall, who started out blogging about her bipolar disorder and went on to launch shows at which individuals share their stories about their struggles with mental health. The group was flooded with criticism from supporters of the #freebritney movement after Jamie Lynn announced plans to donate some of her book proceeds to support its work, and has now announced that it will not be accepting the donation.

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“We heard you. We’re taking action,” it wrote on Instagram. “We are deeply sorry to anyone we offended. We are declining the donation from Jamie Lynn Spears’s book.”

Jamie Lynn has been close-lipped about the controversial conservatorship that saw Britney’s personal and professional life managed by their father, which was suspended by a judge last month. Britney did not name her sister directly in her public court testimony this summer, but did say that she “would honestly like to sue my family, to be totally honest with you”, and that “my family has lived off my conservatorship for 13 years”. Jamie Lynn, in an Instagram post this summer, said that “maybe I didn’t support [Britney the way] the public would like me to with the hashtag on a public platform, but I can assure you that I supported my sister long before there was a hashtag, and I’ll support her long after”.