Melissa Joan Hart Says She Still Feels Guilty for Taking Britney Spears to Her First Club

Melissa Joan Hart opened up about her friendship with Britney Spears after they co-starred in a music video.

In a retrospective with Entertainment Tonight, the Sabrina the Teenage Witch star looked back on her decades-long career, which began when she landed the title role in Clarissa Explains It All in 1991. A few years later, Hart and Spears worked together on the artist’s “(You Drive Me) Crazy” music video.

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“Britney and I got to do a lot of press together. And we had a lot of fun together during this time,” Hart told the publication as she looked back on clips and photos of the two women at that time. The actress shared she felt a sibling-like bond with the then-teen.

“I saw that she was just surrounded by people, never able to break free. And I was like, ‘Hey want to come?'” she said of when she convinced the artist to go to a nightclub with her friends. “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.”

In the music video, Hart and Spears play dress up with friends before going out to a party, where The Devil Wears Prada‘s Adrian Grenier is. It was released alongside Hart and Grenier’s 1999 film Drive Me Crazy, which came out around the same time as “(You Drive Me) Crazy.” The hit song was featured on Spears’ debut album, Baby One More Time, when she was 17.

In the early 2000s, shortly after the artist began gaining popularity and turned 18, Spears was frequently spotted in the party scene. Hart explained she now feels guilty for inviting Spears out to parties with her.

“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,'” the actress recalled of their first night out. “I feel really guilty about that still to this day because I should have known better, being a big sister.”

Years later, Spears was forced into her controversial conservatorship with her father, Jamie Spears. A judge terminated the conservatorship 13 years later after the #FreeBritney movement, allowing the artist to regain control her life, including finances, career and big decisions like getting married and having children, which she was not allowed to do beforehand.

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