The pair starred in Britney Spears’ music video for “You Drive Me (Crazy)”. (Getty)
Melissa Joan Hart said she regrets taking Britney Spears clubbing when she was underage, explaining: “I feel really guilty about that still to this day.”
The Sabrina the Teenage Witch actor, 48, looked back on her career in a recent interview, including when she starred alongside the now 42-year-old singer in her 1999 music video for “You Drive Me (Crazy)”.
The star looked over photos of herself and the “Toxic” hitmaker – whom Hart is six years older – taken back from that year and beyond. Entertainment Tonight said they had a “sibling-style bond”, with the actor adding that they did “a lot of press together” at the time.
“I saw that she was just surrounded by people, never able to break free. And I was like, ‘Hey want to come?’,” Hart said to the outlet of encouraging Spears to go clubbing with her. “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.”
According to the outlet, Spears would have been just 17 at the time of the “Crazy” music video release, which hailed from her debut album, Baby One More Time.
“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 said.
Spears – who recently re-entered the chart despite not releasing music since 2022’s “Hold Me Closer” duet with Elton John – touched on her relationship with alcohol in her 2023 memoir, The Woman In Me. She wrote in the book about drinking with her mother when she was in year nine (the UK equivalent) at school.
“For fun, starting when I was in eighth grade, my mom and I would make the two-hour drive from Kentwood to Biloxi, Mississippi, and while we were there, we would drink daiquiris,” she wrote. “We called our cocktails ‘toddies.’
“I loved that I was able to drink with my mom every now and then,” she continued in the book. “The way we drank was nothing like how my father did it. When he drank, he grew more depressed and shut down. We became happier, more alive and adventurous.”
If this story has affected you, call Drinkline on 0300 123 1110 9 am-8 pm on weekdays, and 11 am-4 pm on weekends in the UK. In the US, call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).