Why Jennette McCurdy Disappeared From Hollywood

For anyone growing up in the 2000s, Jennette McCurdy was a big part of their childhood. She played Sam Puckett, a rough and tumble girl with a spunky attitude, on the Nickelodeon sitcom "iCarly." The high-energy, candy-colored show follows a group of teenagers who find fame on a prank web series. "iCarly" ran from 2007 to 2012 and was followed by the spin-off and "Victorious" crossover, "Sam & Cat," where McCurdy starred alongside Ariana Grande (now an Oscar nominee for her role in the movie adaptation of "Wicked") as the series' namesakes. Their characters were like oil and vinegar, with Sam's toughness rubbing up against Cat's sweet, ditzy nature. The series was short-lived, though, and only ran from 2013 to 2014.

In 2021, "iCarly" was resurrected on Paramount+. The revival ran for three seasons and focused on an adult Carly (Miranda Cosgrove, reprising her role from the original series), now a neurotic 20-something and social media influencer. Critics were keen on the reboot, with /Film's Valerie Ettenhofer describing the "iCarly" revival as "a clever and cheeky sitcom about younger millennial anxieties and the absurdity of late capitalism — one that's fundamentally progressive and unabashedly queer to boot." However, McCurdy did not reprise her role as Sam for the series, having largely disappeared from Hollywood (at least on screen) in the years since her days as a child star for reasons that are personal and, unfortunately, traumatic.

The release of Jennette McCurdy's book "I'm Glad My Mom Died," with its attention-grabbing title, was a bombshell that rattled Hollywood and longtime "iCarly" fans. The book's cover, featuring bright pastel colors and McCurdy's resigned smile as she holds a pink urn filled with confetti, perfectly captures its uniquely dark humor. On the surface, McCurdy seemed to be living the dream as a Nickelodeon star, but her candid memoir reveals how taxing fame was on her mental health. Reading it, one will learn that her entire career was under the shadow of her abusive mother, who controlled nearly every aspect of her life. That included monitoring every morsel of food she ate, forcing her to continue acting as the family breadwinner despite loathing it, and even showering her well into her teenage years.

"I'm Glad My Mom Died" is both heartbreaking and eye-opening, having been written with a delicate balance of unflinching vulnerability, dry wit, and insight. It helps readers understand why McCurdy chose to disappear from Hollywood around 2018, at least in front of the camera, seeing as it had caused her so much distress. As she explains on her podcast "Empty Inside," "With [my mother's] death kind of died a lot of her ideas for my life, and that was its own journey, and a difficult one for sure." Her memoir also reveals many other reasons, besides the unhealthy relationship with her mother, that pushed her to break free from show business.

Although Jennette McCurdy only refers to him as "The Creator" in "I'm Glad My Mom Died," she is clearly talking about Dan Schneider, the creator of "iCarly" and countless other Nickelodeon hits. She addresses his toxic and immature behavior, which was also exposed in the 2024 documentary "Quiet on Set." The documentary made shocking revelations about how inappropriate Schneider was while filming children's sitcoms, and how the entire network was defined by a predatory culture — with many of the adults working on its shows being pedophiles. As a result, Nickelodeon wound up destroying the childhoods of its talented young actors from this era.

In her book, McCurdy describes The Creator as "mean-spirited, controlling, and terrifying," firing children for small mistakes and making "grown men and women cry with his insults and degradation." He would also be flirtatious, explicitly asking McCurdy at 14 years old to try on multiple bikinis so he would have lots of options to look through and frequently offering to give her a shoulder rub. In addition, The Creator cruelly included over-exaggerated eating scenes for her character Sam, knowing fully well that McCurdy was dealing with food insecurities. Nickelodeon later offered her $300,000 to agree not to discuss her experiences at the network in her book, but McCurdy turned it town to speak the truth and raise awareness about this exploitative behavior. The glossy, fun-loving veneer of the Nickelodeon work environment needed to be unmasked for the world.

Jennette McCurdy has stated that acting was an incredibly difficult profession for her. She was forced into the career at age 6, and although McCurdy found success, it was never something she truly wanted. Being thrown into a room with strangers for auditions expected to perfectly match their subjective expectations was nerve-wracking, especially for a young child who was trying to support her family. In her book, McCurdy recalls imagining family member deaths to cry on cue — a technique that helped her land roles but emotionally scrambled her still-developing mind.

When McCurdy would mention quitting, her mother would have an emotional breakdown. "'You can't quit!' mom sobbed. 'This was our chance! This was ouuuuur chaaaaance!' She banged on the steering wheel, accidentally hitting the horn. Mascara trickled down her cheeks. She was hysterical," McCurdy writes. Her mother was obsessed with making her a star, and it became McCurdy's mission to succeed in order to make her stable and happy.

Female actors, in particular, face immense pressure to maintain a particular beauty standard, one that is slim and soft. Sadly, McCurdy was no exception even as a child star. In "I'm Glad My Mom Died," McCurdy recalls how her agent said she didn't get an audition for "Because of Winn-Dixie" because she was too "homely" and not an "ethereal beauty." She was 13 at the time. These impossible demands for a feminine ideal only worsened the eating disorder issues McCurdy was already struggling with.

While many former Disney and Nickelodeon child stars manage to step out of the shadow of their kiddie-centric roles (see Zendaya playing a wife and mother in the feisty romantic sports drama "Challengers"), McCurdy never could. "I feel so unfulfilled by the roles that I played and felt like it was the most cheesy, embarrassing [...] I imagine there's a very different experience to be had with acting if you're proud of your roles," she explained on her podcast "Empty Inside." The hyperactive, gross-out Nickelodeon style of acting and her role as the tough tomboy Sam loomed large in casting directors' minds, making it hard for McCurdy to land auditions for roles outside that box. It can be very difficult for child actors to escape that typecasting of what they're known for, and if you don't even enjoy acting in the first place, why would you try hard to break free from that image?

McCurdy tried to pivot to singing, but it ended up being what she's described as "a much-regretted country music blip." Despite finding some success with her sweet, melodic singles "So Close" and "Generation Love," her career never really took off beyond mall tours. She confesses in "I'm Glad My Mom Died" that she became jealous of her "Sam & Cat" co-star Ariana Grande, who was flourishing as a pop star. She recalls that Grande "misses work regularly to go sing at award shows, record new songs, and do press for her upcoming album while I stay back and angrily hold down the fort." McCurdy no longer sings; it was another talent her mother force-fed her to have in order to become a "triple threat" in entertainment.

Jennette McCurdy quit acting in 2018 to pursue writing and directing, telling The Hollywood Reporter, "I never got the chance to be cast in a project I was proud of. Now I have a better chance of making things I'm proud of than getting cast in things I'm proud of." McCurdy has not completely disappeared from Hollywood; she's now involved only in ways that give her more autonomy and creative control. She's even written and directed several short films, many of which are semi-autobiographical. After the success of "I'm Glad My Mom Died," McCurdy signed a two-book deal as well.

Outside of writing, McCurdy launched the "Empty Inside" podcast in 2021 and "Hard Feelings" in 2023, both of which are therapeutic dives into deep topics about human foibles and healing. It seems that, for now, McCurdy is most comfortable taking control of what she's a part of creatively after being controlled for so long by others — her mother, Nickelodeon, and the general Hollywood machine.

Using her witty and compassionate voice in her own projects, McCurdy finds cathartic release by drawing from her past from behind the scenes — though she hasn't completely ruled out a return to Hollywood in front of the camera. "I do feel like only through writing the book have I gotten to a place where I think there might be a way of exploring acting that doesn't carry that baggage I carried with me for so long. Maybe if I write something for myself. I think that'd really be one of the only ways I could kind of try exploring it again," she told E! News in 2022. We look forward to seeing what other projects are in her bright future, on her own terms this time.

If you or someone you know may be the victim of child abuse, please contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat services.

If you need help with an eating disorder, or know someone who does, help is available. Visit the National Eating Disorders Association website or contact NEDA's Live Helpline at 1-800-931-2237. You can also receive 24/7 Crisis Support via text (send NEDA to 741-741).