Jeanette McCurdy may have officially retired from acting some years ago, but she’s now
opening up even more about the reasons why she stepped away, and the revelations are
incredibly intense.
Let’s get into it.
As you may know, former iCarly star Jennette McCurdy, who played Sam in the show’s original
run, opted out of taking part in the reboot due to her retirement from acting.
While she’s touched on her reasons before, Jennette revealed to People magazine specific
details that informed her decision to retire and they include startling allegations of
physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her mother, Debbie, who died of cancer
in 2013.
But before we continue, we just wanted to issue a trigger warning as we will be touching
on sensitive topics including eating disorders, and physical and emotional abuse, so please
only continue watching if you feel comfortable doing so.
During her interview with People, Jennette detailed her rocky life at home, explaining
QUOTE, "My earliest memories of childhood were of heaviness and chaos.
My mom's emotions were so erratic that it was like walking a tightrope every day.
The mood fluctuations were daily."
She told the magazine that she “witnessed physical fighting between her parents” and
that her mom Debbie’s outbursts would often become “violent” when she was a young
girl.
Her mother’s attention shifted around the time Jennette turned six years old.
She said: "My mom had always dreamt of being a famous actor and she became obsessed with
making me a star…
I felt like my job was to keep the peace.
And I wanted to make my mom happy."
Admitting that she was “cripplingly shy” back then, Jennette obliged and went on auditions
that soon landed her steady work, which should’ve been a happy and exciting time for Jennette,
however, based on her revelations, it was anything but that.
By age 10, her mother began bleaching Jennette’s hair, whitening her teeth, and by age 11,
Debbie introduced her daughter to calorie counting… something that had lasting effects
on Jennette.
When she landed the coveted role of Sam on iCarly, Jennette says she was suffering from
“full fledged anorexia” which would later transform into binge eating and then become
bulimia.
Not only was she enduring eating disorders, but Jennette revealed that up until age 17,
her mother QUOTE “insisted on performing vaginal and breast exams and never let her
daughter shower alone.”
When she was 17 years old, Jennette was already three years into starring on a hit show.
The star explained she was “so repressed and delayed developmentally” thanks to Debbie’s
intense control over her daughter.
Once Debbie died of cancer in 2013, Jennette said she was finally able to rebel.
She said began having sex and experimenting with alcohol for the first time, which set
her up for a years-long struggle with bulimia and a dependency on alcohol...
Until she decided it was time to make some BIG changes and build a life for herself outside
of her late mother’s control and constraints.
Jennette said: "It's a risk to change your life, but I made it my mission.
I did not know how to find my identity without my mom.
And I'm not going to lie.
It was very hard to get here.
But now, I'm at a place in my life that I never would have thought was possible.
And I finally feel free."
We can’t help but be proud of Jennette for surviving all of that and now telling the
world about it.
She went on to say that the only reason she’s been able to heal was her mom’s death, admitting
QUOTE, "I know if my mom were alive, I'd still have an eating disorder.
It was only distance from her that allowed me to get healthy."
Now that the star has recovered thanks to “intense therapy,” Jennette took to the
page to transform her experiences into a darkly comedic one-woman show named “I’m Glad
My Mom Died,” a title she calls “thought-provoking” and went on to explain: "Even though it may
seem black and white, there's a fullness to my narrative.
Life can be dark — and messy.
Nobody has a perfect life."
Ain’t that the truth.
Currently, Jenette is hard at work on an upcoming memoir that will dive even further into everything
that happened in her life and will be a way for her to share her whole story on her own
terms.
For more on Jenette McCurdy, click right over here:
Then feel free to send some words of encouragement to Jenette in the comment section below.
I’m your host Sussan Mourad, you can find me on socials at @sussan_mourad, and I’ll
see you next time.