Lynne Spears: My Bad

"It's kind of like ... Britney was sent out into the world a little bit prematurely." - Lynne Spears, promoting her memoir Through the Storm.

While not officially admitting what a leech she is, Britney Spears' mother did admit, on Today, to some of the mistakes she's made along the way.

When Britney began her career, Lynne said she was a single mother who also had to raise little Jamie Lynn, so she couldn't always be there.

"Did I want to be there? Of course!" she said. "Was it feasible? It wasn't."

Lynne, who also has a 31-year-old son, Bryan Spears, compared her situation to when parents first send their children off to college:

"You don't really know what they're doing in college ... just as Britney set out two years earlier to be a star. She's out there, with the crowds and with her peer groups, and she's doing things - she's a celebrity, for heaven's sake!"

Lynne said she felt she lost control the moment she practically saw Britney Spears naked with a Teletubby on a 1999 cover of Rolling Stone.

She said she wouldn't have agreed to let Britney Spears strip nude, but "we didn't really know what we were doing. We were so in awe. I had never even bought [Rolling Stone], but I just heard this is a really big deal."

"We were kind of in shock at what was going on. It was a two-day shoot. Thank god [manager] Larry Rudolph came in and said, 'Stop, that's enough.'"

So did Lynne Spears get sucked into fame?

"It was more of an excitement at first," she said.

"It seems like everything's fabulous: Look at the trips she gets to go on! There was that honeymoon period where it looked like she could do no wrong. Then there's that ugly side of fame ... and we weren't ready for that."

Britney's 55-hour marriage to Jason Alexander, two kids in two years, her K-Fed divorce, the shaving of her head and several stints in rehab later?

"It was absolutely crazy. I don't think anybody was even trying to sit and think of what was going on," Lynne said. "We were all praying very hard. It seemed like we had no control over what was happening."

Lynne recalls how she was so desperate to get in contact with her daughter that she said she remembers telling her friends:

"If you see my behind going over that wall into the Summit [Britney Spears' house], it's me because it's my last drastic measure."

Looking back, Lynne Spears wonders how it all went wrong.

"I have sat for hours, thinking and thinking about everything that's happened. It's been a whirlwind. When you mix extreme heightened celebrity hood and then when you have heartache ... The mixture's just not healthy."