Jennette McCurdy played some squeaky clean characters in her time as one of the most
recognizable faces on children's TV, but her real life was much more tragic. Here’s the
dark side of McCurdy's fame and how she's worked hard to come out the other side.
Sadly, with pretty much any kind of fame comes negative attention from trolls,
and Jennette McCurdy is no stranger to hateful comments. The star revealed that she's been
the target of some vicious messages via social media, particularly picking apart her appearance.
In a piece for “The Wall Street Journal” in 2014,
she recalled seeing herself on a magazine cover but noticed it had edited her to such an extent
she barely even recognized herself. This triggered her low self-esteem. She admitted,
"I had a two-year span where I was so self-conscious and uncomfortable with my
body that I would dress more provocatively to events and in photos because I looked
to comments of praise to fulfill me and give me the confidence I lacked [...] I
needed affirmation to feel comfortable. I was caught up in the whirlwind that is beauty."
McCurdy also addressed hateful social media messages from trolls with a powerful
Instagram post in December 2015. She intentionally edited her body in a
dramatic way to make a point about unrealistic beauty standards. The now deleted snap showed
McCurdy with an impossibly tiny waist and unnaturally smooth skin. She captioned it,
"Instead of camouflaging our flaws and feeling ashamed,
let's embrace our strengths and feel empowered."
Despite her huge success, McCurdy very candidly admitted in February 2021
that she felt ashamed of her career and embarrassed by her roles that she's played.
So much so that McCurdy quit acting after the death of her mom.
The star made the confession on her "Empty Inside" podcast while speaking with Anna Faris, saying,
"I resent my career in a lot of ways"
She then referred to her past roles as being "cheesy" and unfulfilling, adding,
"I did the shows that I was on from like 13 to 21
and by 15 I was already embarrassed. My friends at 15 weren't, like,
watching this. They weren't like 'Oh cool, you're on this Nickelodeon show.' It was embarrassing."
McCurdy made the decision to stop acting full-time in 2013 in the wake of her mom's tragic death,
but she didn't leave the industry completely. She has acted in a few choice roles since
"Sam & Cat" ended, but shared she's been more focused on writing and directing
since. She told Faris that her career behind the camera has been, quote, "going great."
As for how she feels about her past roles now, McCurdy told “Elite Daily” in April 2020
she wasn't, quote, "fully there yet" when it comes to accepting her past.
"I still have complicated feelings toward my past from my experience with Nickelodeon. It's
something that I work on. I'd like to get to a place of peace with my past. That would be great.”
It's safe to say that Jennette McCurdy hasn't been afraid to admit she didn't exactly relish
her days as a child star. That was no more apparent than when she opened up with filmmakers
Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus on her "Empty Inside" podcast in March 2021. Referring to
the "projects" she was working on as being the biggest source of unhappiness, McCurdy shared,
"I was a famous 19-year-old and making a bunch of money and felt like I had everything at
my fingertips, but I was deeply unhappy and I actually really resented my life.”
She explained that she found it a difficult thing to talk about because she knows how
beloved the shows she starred in are to those who grew up watching them.
"I hear constantly that, 'You made my childhood,' and I think it's
great that they had that experience, but that just was not my experience."
McCurdy went on to call her time as an actor "hellish."
She argued that the bold term is not too intense of a word because,
as she confessed, she never really identified with her squeaky clean characters.
"Nobody really knew me. I was very different from the character I was playing [...] I'm known as a
thing that I'm not [...] [I walked away] for my mental health and for my overall peace."
“Wooooo!”
“Ahhhh!”
Jennette hasn't shied away from getting candid about her experiences with both anxiety
and OCD. In a June 2017 blog post, she wrote about her "nighttime anxiety." She
records that her thoughts were racing and her heart was pounding faster than normal
seemingly for no logical reason. She then went on to list a few things that helped calm her down,
including taking a warm bath and breathing deeply.
McCurdy has also shared how her anxiety dates back to when she was a child
actor auditioning for roles. She told Anna Faris on her "Empty Inside" podcast in February 2021
that she always found acting to be difficult because it made her feel so anxious.
"I'd have to pee like 15 times [...] my heart would just pound, I'd get so clammy.
Really, it was kind of a battle of nerves."
McCurdy also dealt with OCD as a child, which she spoke about during a September
2020 episode of "Empty Inside" while speaking to influencer Hyram Yarbro.
"I had OCD as a kid and I'd be like 'Okay,
so my still small voice is telling me that I need to touch this thing 10 times before
I touch this other thing 10 times so that I can then go to the door and open this five times."
McCurdy shared, admitting that "small voice" would
tell her she needed to do it or her mother would die.
March 2014 saw Jennette McCurdy face a tough time in the media after personal photos were
leaked to the world showing her in some compromising positions wearing lingerie.
The private snaps quickly spread across the internet and created a media firestorm of
speculation that the unauthorized release of the photos put a smudge on her squeaky clean image.
Not to mention that it had put the future of McCurdy's Nickelodeon hit "Sam & Cat" in jeopardy.
McCurdy addressed the leak in a since-deleted tweet, which read,
"To anyone disappointed: I sent those pics to 1 person.
You can connect the dots. Shocked someone would stoop so low. I just speak w/ candor."
It was widely speculated at the time by numerous outlets that the
leak could have led to production on "Sam & Cat" being shut down.
This was especially after McCurdy skipped out on attending the Nickelodeon Kids
Choice Awards as the kids' comedy series went on hiatus amid plenty of drama behind the scenes.
However, McCurdy publicly denied the photos had anything to do with her decision
not to appear at the awards in another since-deleted tweet, and instead pointed
the finger at Nickelodeon for her absence. That social media message appeared to bring
to the surface an apparently frosty relationship between the young actor and the big-time network.
Jennette McCurdy's relationship with Nickelodeon during her time as one of the network's biggest
stars could be described as a rollercoaster…. at best. It's no secret that McCurdy had a
contentious time with the kids' TV network, and she herself pointed to it in the wake
of her leaked photo scandal. Around that same time in March 2014, McCurdy went public about
what was going on behind the scenes after skipping the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards.
In deleted tweets, she claimed that she'd been put in an uncomfortable, compromising,
and unfair situation where she had to, quote, "look out" for herself. She added,
"I chose to not [attend the awards] because sticking up for what is right and what is fair
is what my mom taught me is ALWAYS the most important thing."
She denied she was speaking about the leak and more about how Nickelodeon treated her. A source
told TMZ that McCurdy was supposedly unhappy about her pay as Grande allegedly earned, quote,
"way more money" than her for a very similar role. Nickelodeon was supposedly not willing
to renegotiate McCurdy's contract. A rep for the network told the outlet,
"We have nothing but the utmost respect for Jennette and her talent."
McCurdy has spoken more about her working relationships since. She admitted during
an episode of "Shane And Friends" that her short-lived country music
career wasn't something she wanted to do but something she was told to do.
Jennette McCurdy hasn't made a secret of the fact that she was faced with
serious financial burdens early on in her career, revealing that she became the main
breadwinner for her family while still just a child. Speaking on the very telling "Fish Out of
Water" episode of her "Empty Inside" podcast in February 2021, McCurdy recalled how she started
acting at 6 years old even though she initially didn't wanna do it herself. She explained,
"By age 10 or 11, I was the main financial support for my family and it was very much
the pressure of my family didn't have a lot of money, and this was kind of the way out.”
“‘You’re the ticket out. You’re going to help our family. You’re going to be
the thing [...] you’re our only chance.’”
The star also shared how knowing she needed to work to earn money for her family
weighed on her. She admitted that the stakes being so high
financially was actually what motivated her to be so successful in her acting career.
There's no doubt that the star pulled in plenty of cash from her childhood TV gigs.
According to Celebrity Net Worth, McCurdy is reported to be worth $5 million and earned
$50,000 for each of the more than 90 episodes of "iCarly" she appeared in between 2007 and 2012.
Jennette McCurdy was 21 years old when tragedy struck her family in 2013 as her mom, Debra
McCurdy, died of cancer, 17 years after initially being diagnosed. According to TMZ, Debra was
found to have breast cancer in 1996 but had some good news when she went into remission. However,
the cancer sadly returned in 2010 and spread to various places, including her brain. A source
told the outlet immediately after her death that McCurdy was very close to her mom and was left
devastated. Jennette has since opened up about the impact the loss had on her, telling Vulture
in 2015 that she would work six days after the tragedy to distract herself. McCurdy confessed,
"Really I was just putting this huge life-changing event on the back burner and it was slowly causing
me to unravel to the point where I would say I got to my lowest emotional point [...] [My mom] was my
biggest cheerleader, my biggest supporter, and also my hardest critic. She was very hard on me,
but I always knew that it came from a place of love and that she wanted the best for me."
Another bold admission Jennette McCurdy shared with the world
is her horrible alcohol addiction. The star opened up about how bad things got
following her mom's death during a September 2020 episode of her "Empty Inside" podcast.
McCurdy went through three years of hell after her mom's passing,
where she experienced bulimia and turned to alcohol. She recalled one particularly rough patch
when she was drunk in the middle of the street in France while on a work trip. She admitted,
"I was supposed to do a press junket the next day. I got completely wasted. I'm literally
sitting on a curb and a friend of mine calls me, and he explains to me how to drop a pin,
stays on the phone with me until I get back to my hotel in a cab
because he wants me to be safe and knows that I'm [...] passing out in cabs."
During this time, she explains that she had, quote, "no self-esteem,
no confidence" and felt completely lost without her mom. In April 2020, McCurdy told Elite Daily
her alcohol addiction was one of the main reasons she stepped back from the public eye. She shared,
"I went dark. I went off of social media. I quit acting. I had to make these pretty
big life decisions in order to deal with my stuff, my life."
If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction issues,
help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website
or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).