Jennette McCurdy Opens Up About Her Mom’s Abuse, Therapy, and Friendship With “iCarly” Star Miranda Cosgrove

“What finally undid me was when Ariana came whistle-toning in with excitement because she had spent the previous evening playing charades at Tom Hanks’ house. That was the moment I broke,” she writes.

Like any 20-year-old, “I was comparing myself to the people around me, so I was jealous [of Grande]. It was really a time in my life where I was experiencing jealousy and had to learn how to navigate it,” admits McCurdy, who has not spoken to Grande in “a good couple of years” but wishes her the best and hopes “that she is as happy and fulfilled as anybody can be.”

“But now I’m at a place where I wouldn’t trade my life with anybody’s,” she adds. “I’m very proud of the life that I’ve built, and I’ve done it on my terms and I’ve done it with integrity, and it’s so nice to be able to say I’m proud of who I am and where I am. It feels empowering.”

Over the years, McCurdy says she has been approached numerous times to speak about her time at Nickelodeon — and writes in the book that she was supposedly even offered $300,000 as a “parting gift” from the network that she saw as “hush money” — but she didn’t want to say anything publicly until she felt she was ready. She alleges that a figure known as “The Creator” once gave her an unsolicited shoulder massage, ordered her to have her picture taken in a bikini during a wardrobe fitting, and told her to drink an alcohol-spiked coffee when she was 18.

“Honesty is one of my personal values,” McCurdy says about her decision to speak about her former boss, who she describes as both “generous and over-the-top complimentary” and “mean-spirited, controlling and terrifying” in the book. “[It’s] just something that I try to live by in my day-to-day life, and I also try to take that into my writing, and I think it would be a disservice to my own health and healing and to anybody who read the book if I was anything less than transparent.”

When Cosgrove called McCurdy in late 2020 to ask if she would take part in the Paramount+ revival of iCarly, McCurdy politely passed, citing a desire to pursue other projects. Cosgrove, Kress, and Trainor have all spoken out in respect and support of McCurdy’s decision — something that she appreciates — and McCurdy says she has not watched any of the revival nor has she seen it on her social media feeds. “I hope they’re all having fun. I hope they’re all enjoying it,” she says with an earnest smile. (She has no plans to reprise the role and has never watched the original unless she absolutely had to, but she automatically assumed that Sam, who was a juvenile delinquent on the original, is probably in jail somewhere when asked what she thinks might have happened to her character.)

“Throughout my 20s, there were just a lot of changes and shifts that happened, but I was so close with Miranda for a really long time, and we’re not as close as we used to be, but that’s another person that I wish all the best to, because she was really instrumental in my life for a long time,” McCurdy says. “Having that friendship throughout the show and even in the years afterward, to be able to unpack that experience together, was hugely helpful. I love Nathan and Jerry as well, but I was always the closest with Miranda.”