Desperately Seeking Britney

"Britney Spears-Piece of Me-Jan 2014-45" by Rhys Adams, licensed under CC By-ND 2.0. 

In the spring of 2008, four college girls achieved what a dozen paparazzi couldn’t manage—crashing Jamie Lynn Spears’s baby shower in Kentwood, Louisiana.

A full contingent of photographers swarmed into the tiny town of Kentwood (pop. 2,500), parked their SUVs in the lot of the local gas station/convenience store, and waited for sightings of teen queen Jamie Lynn, who starred in the television series Zoey 101 for four seasons. Jamie Lynn had just turned seventeen and had the tabloids buzzing when she revealed that she was pregnant by boyfriend Casey Aldridge, a pipe layer from Gloster, Mississippi.

But the big attraction was Jamie Lynn’s big sister Britney, the twenty-six-year-old singer who flew in from L.A. for the affair. Britney had not been home in more than a year.  

The shower was set for a Saturday afternoon in early May at Serenity, the house Britney had built for her mother Lynne, a well-guarded, well-gated estate. Meanwhile, the paparazzi—a.k.a. the paps—gathered in the parking lot at Crossroads, a convenience store where you can gas up your pickup, buy lottery tickets and beer, and order fried chicken to go—all in one handy location.

I had first been sent to Kentwood several years earlier to cover the Britney beat. At that time, Kentwood was essentially The Town Without Britney, who lived in L.A. It had definitely seen better days—there was no hotel, no Walmart, not even a McDonald’s. If you wanted a fast-food lunch, you went to the Sonic.

A tiny museum featured a replica of teenaged Britney’s bedroom. Skinney’s Bar was full of Britney memorabilia, but the tight-lipped proprietor wouldn’t talk about her. It was at Skinney’s, hanging out and drinking beer in hopes of gathering some intel, that I saw a karaoke wedding party. Later, as I checked into a motel in nearby Amite, I saw the bride, still in her strapless wedding dress and followed by her groom, slap a hundred-dollar bill on the counter to pay for their honeymoon room.

In short, it was all a bit surreal. I’d make the rounds, mainly hoping to find out if Britney was due in town. Once, at the “chicken place,” I got lucky when Lynne Spears, Jamie Lynn and Britney’s mother, came in to pick up an order. This was during a major feud that Britney had started with her mom. In the parking lot, I introduced myself and asked Lynne if Britney was coming home for the Fourth of July holiday. Without breaking stride, she headed to her Mercedes, telling me, “Everything’s going to be fine. We’re a very strong family.” Believe it or not, that quote was considered a coup.

I was on about my dozenth trip to Kentwood to cover the baby shower, which meant hanging around with the paps and hoping for a break. The break wasn’t exactly the one I’d hoped for, but it did result in an amusing story when four college girls showed up, bubbling with excitement.

Samantha Weaver, Erin Dunne, Macey Melford, and Samantha Mazzarella, all twenty-year-old students at Loyola University in New Orleans, had heard that Britney was expected to attend the shower. They decided to drive the hundred miles to Kentwood, hoping to catch a glimpse of their idol.

“It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing,” said Dunne. “Sam [Weaver] and I always said, ‘When we hear Britney is in town, we’re going.’ I’ve been a fan of Britney since the seventh grade.”

After staying up late watching Animal House Friday night, the girls overslept and then rushed to get out of town. They piled into Weaver’s white 2005 BMW 325i and hit the interstate.

Their timing was perfect. At 4:30 pm, they took the Kentwood exit, turned right onto a four-lane road that leads past the Sonic Drive-In, where Britney once tossed a milkshake at one of the paps; past Auto Zone, where Casey had shopped for a sound system for his Nissan pickup; and past Connie’s Jewelry, where Casey had purchased a ring for Jamie Lynn. Just past the jewelry store and across the railroad tracks, the highway dwindles to two lanes. A water tower is the landmark for Lewiston Road, where the Spears mansion stands behind a huge iron fence and gates. Before the girls knew what was happening, the two deputies guarding the gates had waved them in.

They had never expected to actually make it into the shower. “The plan was to go wait outside and try to see Britney,” said Weaver. “We didn’t even know what to do with ourselves when we got in there. We could hear the guests in the back. At first we just sat in the car.”

Mazzarella and Melford chickened out and stayed in the Beamer, but Weaver and Dunne decided to go for it. They hopped out and strolled toward the house. 

Weaver couldn’t resist grabbing her iPhone from her purse and sneaking a photo of a green sign that said “Baby Shower” with an arrow pointing toward the pool area, where tables of food were decorated with flowers. Pink and blue balloons were tied to the trees. “I go, ‘What the hell,’ and just took a picture real quick,” said Weaver.

As they neared the house, said Weaver, “I got cold feet.” Added Dunne, “It hit me, like, what am I doing?” They looked at each other, turned, and started back toward the Beamer—just as a security man in plain clothes yelled, “What are you doing?”

“I said, ‘I forgot something in my car,’” said Weaver. “Then Lynne Spears comes running out and says, ‘Who are you? We don’t know you.’ I said, ‘I’m Samantha Weaver,’ and she says, ‘We don’t know no Samantha Weaver.’”

At this point, Dunne scurried back to the car, but Weaver tried to brazen it out by claiming that a friend had invited her. After Lynne had checked the guest list, the security guard accused Weaver of trespassing and threatened to arrest her.

Weaver: “I said, ‘I’ve gotta take finals. Can I just go?’

“He asked to search my purse. I showed him my wallet and my tampons and everything. He saw my phone, but he didn’t say anything.”

“The cops asked for all our driver’s licenses and wrote everything down for all four of us,” said Weaver. “They said if we came back, we’d get arrested.”

Driving away, said Weaver, “I was freaking out. I felt like I was gonna cry. What are my parents gonna think?” She soon found out. “I called my mom and she was dying laughing,” said Weaver. “I called my dad and he said ‘Why did you want to waste all that gas?’”

Weaver pulled herself together, turned on to Highway 51, and drove to Nyla’s Burger Basket, just across the state line in Osyka, Mississippi. Nyla’s is a longtime favorite hangout of Britney’s. The small restaurant specializes in burgers, plate lunches, and sweet tea served on plastic tablecloths.

At Nyla’s, the quartet ran into three Loyola friends who had also made the trip from New Orleans and told them the whole story.  

“We did play it pretty cool,” said Dunne. “It was definitely worth it. I think if we had gone in and saw Britney it would have been worth going to jail.”

Not only did they not go to jail, but Weaver sold her photo of the decorated grounds to a tabloid magazine for a tidy sum plus a photo credit in miniscule letters. 

Hers was one of the only photographs taken of the event by outsiders. With about eight paparazzi agencies there, only Splashnews got a photo. The agency rented a helicopter and grabbed a shot of Britney smoking on a second-floor balcony—a picture that was picked up by hundreds of publications in this country and abroad.

The following month, Jamie Lynn gave birth to daughter Maddie. She and Aldridge eventually split up, and she moved to Nashville to work on writing and singing country music. In 2013, Jamie Lynn launched her career as a recording artist and released her debut single “How Could I Want More.” In March 2014 she married businessman Jamie Watson. The family lives in the Hammond area, not far from Kentwood.

Today, nearly seven years later, Weaver is a teacher in the Bay Area of California, Dunne and Melford work in New York City, and Mazzarella works in the northeast. They haven’t forgotten their great adventure.

“It was a crazy experience,” said Dunne in a recent telephone interview. “We all still talk about it.”

“That’s one of my ice-breaker stories,” said Mazzarella. “Everybody always loves it. It’s so notorious.”

“I haven’t been back to Kentwood since then,” said Melford. “Because the police told us never to return.”

Ruth Laney can be reached at ruthlaney@cox.net.