‘iCarly’ Star Jennette McCurdy Details Alleged Childhood Abuse From Her Mom

Jennette McCurdy is opening up about the emotional and physical abuse she says she suffered at the hands of her mom, Debra McCurdy, throughout her childhood up until her mom’s death in 2013 due to cancer. In her new memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died, the former iCarly star, now 30, revealed how her mother’s own failed dreams of becoming a star shaped her childhood.

Before auditions, Jennette recalls Debra giving her sugar-free Red Bulls, and after she was called too “homely” to audition for the lead in Because of Winn-Dixie, Jennette was forced as a child to use teeth whitening strips, tint her eyelashes and use store-bought hair dye. When she expressed to her mom that she no longer wanted to act, her mom responded with “hysteria,” telling her daughter it was their “chance” she was throwing away, as per Entertainment Tonight.

When Jennette began to hit puberty around 11, she recalled worrying her mom wouldn’t love her as much as she aged, as Debra “often weeps and holds me really tight and says she just wants me to stay small and young.” Debra’s answer to Jennette’s aging became restricting her food. “We’re keeping me on a 1,000-calorie diet, but I have the smart idea that if I only eat half my food, I’ll only be receiving half the calories, which means that I will be shrinking twice as fast,” Jennette writes in her book. Debra denied noticing a change in her daughter’s eating to a concerned doctor, and by age 14, Jennette’s weight loss had gotten to the point where she still sat in a booster seat in the car. 

Jennette also details her fear and embarrassment of showering around that time, as her mom still insisted on bathing her, sometimes at the same time as her teenage brother. “When she showers us together, Mom says it’s because she’s got too much to do. Scott asked if he could shower himself once. Mom sobbed and said she didn’t want him to grow up so he never asked again after that,” she writes.

Regardless of if she was alone or with her brother, Jennette said Debra would give her an exam of her breasts and crotch area. “She says she wants to make sure I don’t have any mysterious lumps or bumps because those could be cancer. I say okay because I definitely don’t want cancer, and since Mom’s had it and all, she would know if I do,” Jennette writes.

After eventually being cast in iCarly, Jennette said her mother eased up on monitoring her food intake as severely, but fame put “a wedge” in their relationship. “She wanted this. And I wanted her to have it. I wanted her to be happy. But now that I have it, I realize that she’s happy and I’m not,” she writes. “Her happiness came at the cost of mine. I feel robbed and exploited. Sometimes I look at her and I just hate her. And then I hate myself for feeling that.”

When Debra died in 2013, Jennette continued to struggle with her eating disorder as a way of “honoring” her mom. When confronted by a therapist about how her mother’s behavior amounted to “abuse,” Jennette was shaken, and quit therapy for a time as she came to terms with her entire identity having been built on the “false foundation” of her mother looking out for her. She later learned Debra had lied to her for years about the identity of her father. 

Jennette has since sought help for her eating disorder and alcohol consumption as she’s come to terms with her mother’s behavior. “Her death left me with more questions than answers, more pain than healing, and many layers of grief,” the former actress writes, noting that if her mother was still alive, “There’s a good chance I would’ve had a complete and public mental breakdown by this point. I’d still be deeply unhappy and severely mentally unhealthy.”