A Timeline of Britney Spears and Jamie Lynn Spears’ Public Relationship

Siblings fight, make up and then fight again — that’s true of any family. Yet one subplot of Britney Spears’ legal battle to end her 13-year conservatorship has been the seeming dissolution of her relationship with younger sister Jamie Lynn Spears, who was still in the single digits when a teenage Britney broke through to pop superstardom in the Y2K era.

The tension hasn’t always been there: Britney helped Jamie Lynn land her first acting gig, penned the theme song to her sister’s Zoey 101 sitcom, and was singing alongside her on her 2013 album, Britney Jean. In the wake of a series of explosive court hearings, however, there have been emotional videos, accusatory captions and even dueling emojis suggesting a fracture in their relationship. As Britney continues to call out her family and the part certain members played in her conservatorship, the publication of Jamie Lynn’s autobiography, Things I Should Have Said, added fuel to the fire in early 2022.

But by late 2022, it seemed that things may once again have changed in the siblings’ volatile relationship. An Instagram post on Britney’s 41st birthday read, “It’s my b-day but you’re my heart so I’m thinking about you. Congratulations on being so brave, inspiring, and showing guts and glory in your show !!! You ain’t alone … if anybody knows what that feels like … I get it. My baby sister !!! I love you !!!”

What happened to Britney and Jamie Lynn’s close bond — and when did it start to break? We chart the ups and downs of their public relationship below.