Jennette McCurdy was a child star on Nickelodeon. She never wanted to be.

Content warning: This story includes descriptions of emotional abuse and disordered eating that may be distressing to some readers.

When American actor Jennette McCurdy was a child, she was asked to cry on cue for a TV pilot audition. 

It was for the role of a young girl called Emily, whose fictional dad has been murdered. The audition scene was of an emotional Emily getting called in for interrogation by police.

As Jennette sat in the waiting room for her audition, she knew she wasn't comfortable crying on cue — she didn't think she had it in her, but more importantly — she didn't want to. So she told her mum Debra.

Jennette was met with anger and force.

"Of course you will. You're the character Emily. You ARE Emily," Jennette recounted her mother Debra saying.

But Jennette didn't want to be Emily that day. She just wanted to be Jennette. And she didn't want to be a child actor, even though her mother pushed her down that road with all her might.

Jenette went on to land the 'role of a lifetime' in the hit Nickelodeon series iCarly. But throughout her career as a child and teen actor, Jennette said she was abused and exploited.

Watch Jennette McCurdy on iCarly. Story continues below.

After that fateful cry-on-cue audition, Jennette said she and her mum knew she hadn't landed the role. Still in a booster seat because of her young age, Jennette wrote in her 2022 memoir that the drive home was extremely tense.

When Jennette told her mum Debra that she didn't want to act anymore and that it made her uncomfortable, she was told she didn't have a choice.

"'You can't quit!' mum 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," Jennette recounted. 

Jennette didn't get to quit acting. As she said, Debra's own dream as a child had been to act and perform, so Jennette felt as though that dream was forced upon her. 

"My earliest memories of childhood were of heaviness, and chaos," Jennette told PEOPLE in 2021. "My mum's emotions were so erratic that it was like walking a tightrope every day. The mood fluctuations were daily. She became obsessed with making me a star."

Over time Jennette said things became worse.

Jennette said she was 10 years old when her mother started bleaching Jennette's hair and whitening her teeth. When Jennette was 11, Debbie fixated on her daughter's weight. By the time she was a teenager, Jennette was struggling with anorexia, which later swung to binge eating and then bulimia.

And until the age of 17, Jennette said Debra insisted on performing vaginal and breast exams and never let her daughter shower alone. Jennette also said that when paparazzi photos emerged of her in Hawaii in a bikini, Debra sent a barrage of abusive emails, calling Jennette "a little slut" and an "ugly monster".

In 2007, iCarly began airing on Nickelodeon — a program about a trio of young teens who create a successful web show together. It was an overnight success. Jennette starred as Carly's best friend Sam Bucket, a wisecracking, juvenile delinquent.

Jennette said when she got the iCarly role she hoped it would finally make her mum happy. By this stage, she was 13.

"I jumped into Mum's arms. She squeezed me. I was elated. Everything was going to be different now. Everything was going to be better. Mum would finally be happy. Her dream had come true."

Jennette on iCarly in the early days. Image: Nickelodeon. 

Jennette was also controlled by Dan Schneider, the creator and showrunner of various Nickelodeon shows, including iCarly. Schneider is under scrutiny with the release of Quiet On Set: The Dark Side Of Kids TV — a 2024 documentary examining the murky side of children’s television, which was partly inspired by Jennette's memoir.

On the set of iCarly, Jennette said she enjoyed working with her co-stars. But in her memoir, she spoke about her troubling encounters with 'The Creator' at the forefront of Nickelodeon. 

"He was mean-spirited, controlling, and terrifying," she said. 

Elaborating a bit more to The Washington Post, she said: "It's important to talk about. It was so commonplace, his behaviour, and it was so accepted because everyone was scared of losing their job. I don't blame any of them. I get it. But it was really unfortunate; everything that happened in a children's television series environment. It really seems like there's not much of a moral compass there."

She recalled occasions where he allegedly provided an unsolicited shoulder massage and pressured her to sip his alcohol-spiked coffee when she was 18. 

According to Jennette, after allegations of emotional abuse, he was eventually forbidden from being on set with any actors and allegedly operated out of what she described in her book as a "cave-like room to the side of the sound stage, surrounded by piles of cold cuts and Kids' Choice Awards blimps, his most cherished life accomplishment."

iCarly's lead actor, Miranda Cosgrove, who remains close friends with Jennette, said to the New York Times she feels upset looking back and not realising what Jennette was going through - both on set and at home.

"When you're young, you're so in your own head," Miranda said.

"You can't imagine that people around you are having much harder struggles. You don't expect things like that from the person in the room who's making everyone laugh."

Jennette McCurdy and Miranda Cosgrove at the end of iCarly. Image: Nickelodeon. 

"My whole childhood and adolescence were very exploited," Jennette told the New York Times. "It still gives my nervous system a reaction to say it. There were cases where people had the best intentions and maybe didn't know what they were doing. And also cases where they did - they knew exactly what they were doing."

When iCarly ended after six successful seasons, Nickelodeon green-lit another Dan Schneider-run spinoff series. It brought together Jennette's iCarly character, Sam, and Ariana Grande's Victorious character, Cat.

It was aptly called Sam & Cat.

At this point in time, Ariana Grande was still only known for her role in Victorious — but her music career was starting to take off.

Jennette said she and Ariana were professional, but were not close. And as Ariana's music career began to skyrocket, Jennette said she felt resentful. 

It wasn't because Jenette desired a music career — she had already tried it and didn't enjoy music. It was because Jennette had not been given permission to work on other things or accept other offers, whereas Ariana had been given permission from the television execs to follow her music commitments. 

"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," Jennette wrote in the memoir. That was the moment I broke."

Sam & Cat soon imploded and was axed after one season in 2014.

When the show was canned, Jennette said she was offered US$300,000 from Nickelodeon if she agreed to never talk publicly about her experiences at the network, specifically in relation to the behaviour of 'The Creator.'

It was referenced as a "thank-you gift". But it had strings attached. 

"This feels to me like hush money," McCurdy said at the time. She turned it down on the spot.

Jennette McCurdy on Sam & Cat with Ariana Grande. Image: Nickelodeon. 

"The way I see it now is, that decision came from self-righteousness," she said to The Washington Post. "Should I have taken that money? I'm glad I didn't because I'm able to talk about it, and I don't have to have that secret haunt me."

Since her Nickelodeon days, Jennette has walked away from acting and notably declined to take part in the 2021 Paramount+ reboot of iCarly.

As for Jennette's mum Debra, booking iCarly didn't save their mother-daughter relationship. Throughout her teens, Jennette continued to struggle with an eating disorder and heavy drinking. 

"It's no f**king wonder people go off the deep end. It's no wonder that people have mental health struggles and very public breakdowns. I'm really grateful that I didn't have that. My breakdown was private."

Then in 2013, Debra died of cancer.

It wasn't until her mum's death that Jennette realised the abuse she had endured was not okay. And that she needed to get help. Jennette started attending regular therapy, sought help for her eating disorder and was able "to accept my mum was abusive".

So in 2022, Jennette decided to write a memoir about all her experiences, titling it I'm Glad My Mom Died.

"It's funny, it's sad and I hope it's meaningful. It was several years of really intense therapy before I started feeling like I could explore all that personal stuff creatively," she said to Time.

Jennette said it was her strong relationship with her brothers — who also struggled with Debra — and her grandfather that gave her the courage to tell her story.

"There's no active form of dysfunction in my life at all," she said.

"I'm in a good place, which is such a weird thing to say. I feel more fulfilled than I ever have, and I wish it wasn't new, but it is very new for me."

As for what she has to say about child actors, Jennette noted that she hopes the cycle gets broken. Because she isn't the first young actor who has experienced "exploitation" in the entertainment industry.

"My hope would be that any child actor doesn’t lose their authentic self. That's the thing that gets rattled if you lose sight of it: who you are underneath the characters and lights and red carpets."

This article was originally published on August 7, 2022 and has since been updated with new information. 

If this has raised any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service. 

For help and support for eating disorders, contact the Butterfly Foundation's National Support line and online service on 1800 ED HOPE (1800 33 4673).

Feature Image: Nickelodeon/Getty.