Melissa Joan Hart is experiencing some regret. The actor reflected on the role she played in introducing Britney Spears to partying. Speaking with ET, Hart says that she became friends with Spears after the music video for “You Drive Me (Crazy).”
That led to Hart taking an under-aged Spears clubbing for the first time. Hart felt very much like a big sister to Spears, being six years older. In the years since, Spears developed a reputation for partying. Now, Hart is owning up to the role she played in influencing Spears.
“Britney and I got to do a lot of press together. And we had a lot of fun together during this time,” Hart said. Hart wanted to help Spears come out of her shell. “I saw that she was just surrounded by people, never able to break free. And I was like, ‘Hey want to come?’ I would go to a club every night — I love dancing and I loved going out, but I also knew to be responsible and, like, when to stop.”
However, she later would feel guilty about it. “She was underage and young and — but I [was] just like, ‘Let’s go out. We’re just gonna go out and have some fun.’ And yeah — and I feel really guilty about that still to this day because I should have known better, being a big sister,” Hart told ET.
Melissa Joan Hart Felt Guilty
Hart and Spears lost touch over the years. In fact, the last time she saw Spears was when she was doing her Las Vegas residency, Britney: Piece of Me. “I saw her when she was doing her Vegas residency a few years back, but she was doing her show so, you know, it was a quick hello backstage and that was it,” Hart said.
Meanwhile, Hart recently starred in the Lifetime film The Bad Guardian, which focuses on someone being assigned a guardian. Hart said she accepted the role in part to shine a light on Spears and also Wendy Williams, who both had guardians.
“It’s kind of encompassing a lot of different stories. It’s not one person’s story, but this is happening all across the country where people are losing family members to guardianships, to these permanent guardianships that judges put in place to protect the person, usually seniors,” she said
Hart continued, “I mean, we know as Britney or Wendy Williams, having guardianships that are, you know, causing conflict. But in a lot of cases, it’s families who lose a senior family member,” she continued, emphasizing how difficult and costly the situations can be in real life.