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Why Jennette McCurdy didn’t return for the ‘iCarly’ reboot

Jennette McCurdy’s memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died reveals the actor’s feelings about returning to the iCarly reboot in 2021.

Known best for her sweet and sassy role of Sam on Nickelodeon’s iCarly, Jennette McCurdy grew up to resent the very industry that raised her.  Opening up in her recent memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died, which was published this week via Simon & Schuster, McCurdy has revealed a darker side to the industry, one that we have all heard about, but still remains heartbreaking and shocking none the less.

From dealing with an abusive parent, to the ‘creator’ of the show overstepping the line and photographing McCurdy behind the scenes wearing a bikini, there is a lot that the actor had to get off her chest. 

iCarly Jennette
Credit: NYTimes

When asked recently to come back and star in the 2021 reboot of the show that made her a household name (certainly among Disney fans anyway), McCurdy declined the opportunity, saying, “there’s nothing you can say to convince me.”

McCurdy has expressed that she never really wanted to be an actor, and that it was the enormous pressure her mother placed upon her that forced her into the industry, rather than being given the freedom to choose it. Looking back on iCarly as an adult, she felt ashamed and found her acting to be cheesy and embarrassing.

But we are talking about iCarly, here. Cheesiness was its main draw, and whether or not McCurdy can see it, her role was humorous and a stand-out in terms of casting. She was by and large the reason why we all tuned in.

When McCurdy’s iCarly co-star, Miranda Cosgrove approached her to come back for the reboot, McCurdy said, “Miranda, I’m not doing the reboot, and there’s nothing you can say to convince me.”

McCurdy recalls in her memoir how “she tells me she thinks the reboot could be an opportunity for all of us in the cast to ‘get back out there,’ maybe get some other opportunities from it, that “it’s really good money,” but McCurdy felt that “my mental health and happiness fall under that category.” 

“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.”

McCurdy may not be returning to iCarly, but she does go on to share in a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, that she is “open to the idea” of coming back to acting in general: “I am shocked to be saying — have you ever had one of those thoughts where it’s like, ‘Oh where did that come from? Why is this happening?,” explaining how she had a random thought one day about returning to showbiz.

“I had that maybe, I wanna say, a couple months back where I thought, ‘You know what? There might be a way for me to act from a place that feels really healing and empowered, maybe write something for myself.'”

“I don’t know what that looks like. I haven’t gone that far, definitely wanna focus on writing and directing, but I’m open to the idea of acting.” She added, “which feels like growth to me because I had walked away from it so definitively in my past, which felt important to me at the time. But I’m just in a different place now.”