Melissa Joan Hart feels 'guilty' for taking an underage Britney Spears to her 1st nightclub in the '90s
As a teenage actress in the 1990s, Melissa Joan Hart shared a strong bond with a handful of other young stars in the spotlight, including Britney Spears.
In a new interview, the "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" star opened up about her past friendship with the "Toxic" singer and revealed why she feels "really guilty" to this day about introducing the nightlife to Spears.
"Britney and I got to do a lot of press together. And we had a lot of fun together during this time," Hart, who starred in the music video for Spears' song "(You Drive Me) Crazy" in 1999, told Entertainment Tonight.
"I saw that she was just surrounded by people, never able to break free. And I was like, 'Hey want to come?'" Hart said. "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."
"She was underage and young, but I [was] just like, 'Let's go out. We're just going to 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," said Hart, who is 6 years older than Spears.
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While Hart said she has not kept in contact with Spears throughout the years, she briefly crossed paths with her after seeing her perform at her Las Vegas residency.
"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," she said.
Following a series of highly-publicized mental health struggles, Spears was placed under the conservatorship of her father, Jamie, in 2008.
After a brutal battle, the court order successfully ended on Nov. 12, 2021. An outstanding dispute over Jamie's request for Spears to pay his legal fees ended last month. However, details surrounding the case were not made public.
"My family hurt me!!! There has been no justice and probably never will be!!!" Spears wrote in a since-deleted Instagram post last month. "The people who sat and did absolutely nothing when they did that for four months are smooth sailing!!!"
She added, "The way I was brought up I was always taught the formative of right and wrong but the very two people who brought me up with that method hurt me !!! I am so lucky to be here!!!"
"It’s funny ‘cus till this very day I haven’t told them face to face!!! I text through IG but I honestly believe it will not be so safe if I ever did go face to face so," she wrote. "The child in me knows they would be destroyed and that’s basically it!!! I do miss my home in Louisiana and I wish I could visit but they took everything!!!"