Jennette McCurdy Confirms Why She’s Not on ‘iCarly’ Paramount+ Revival

Jennette McCurdy has remained friends with her iCarly co-star Miranda Cosgrove but declined to join the Paramount+ revival of the hit Nickelodeon series. In her memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died, the former actress, 30, revealed that Cosgrove tried repeatedly to get her to play Sam Puckett again. In the end, McCurdy decided it would be best for her mental health not to return to acting.

In her book, McCurdy wrote about how the revival changed her relationship with Cosgrove, 29. One day, Cosgrove called her to ask about joining the show. “Miranda, I’m not doing the reboot. There’s nothing you can say to convince me,” McCurdy recalled telling her friend, reports Entertainment Tonight. However, Cosgrove told her it “could be an opportunity for all of us in the cast to ‘get back out there’” and earn better career opportunities. McCurdy continued to decline, even after Cosgrove said she could earn “really good money” by returning.

“‘But there are things more important than money. And my mental health and happiness fall under that category,’” McCurdy recalled telling Cosgrove. “There’s a moment of silence. It’s one of those rare moments where I feel like I didn’t say too much, or too little. I feel like I represented myself accurately and there’s nothing I would change about the way I said it. I feel proud. We wrap up our conversation, promising to keep in touch, and hang up.”

Last year, Cosgrove told Entertainment Tonight that the iCarly team really wanted McCurdy back. “We all really wanted Jennette to be a part of the show in real life. But she’s just doing other things and we’re really happy for her,” Cosgrove said. McCurdy’s character was mentioned on the show since Carly “very much still loves Sam and always will,” Cosgrove explained.

Elsewhere in I’m Glad My Mom Died, McCurdy wrote about being “fascinated” by Cosgrove’s “independence” when they met as teens. As she wrote in her memoir, her mother, Debra McCurdy, was emotionally and physically abusive. She wrote about her mother, who died in 2013, pushing her to act, even when she wanted to quit. McCurdy was surprised to see Cosgrove not following the same rigid rules Debra McCurdy made her follow.

“She walked alone to pick up food from a different nearby restaurant each day — alone! What’s that like? Then I’d always hear when she came walking back into the studio because she’d be playing Gwen Stefani or Avril Lavigne from her Sidekick. I knew of these artists, but Mom didn’t allow me to listen to them because she said their music might make me wanna ‘do bad things,’” McCurdy wrote of Cosgrove. “On set, Miranda said cuss words like ‘s—’ and ‘a—,’ and she took the Lord’s name in vain at least fifty times a day. Mom warned me not to get too close to Miranda because she doesn’t believe in God.”

McCurdy’s friendship with Cosgrove is a “source of camaraderie and emotional support,” McCurdy wrote. When iCarly ended in 2012, McCurdy was devastated and worried her friendship with Cosgrove would end, but she didn’t have any reason to. Their friendship has only “gotten stronger” since iCarly ended, McCurdy wrote. She even told Cosgrove about her struggles with anorexia and bulimia.

However, they began to naturally “drift apart” in their late 20s. “Life happens. Love happens. Loss happens,” McCurdy wrote. “Change and growth happen at different paces for different people, and sometimes the paces just don’t line up. It’s devastating if I think too much about it, so I usually don’t.”