Jenette McCurdy found fame through her role in iCarly. From the outside looking in, the actor appeared to have all the success you could dream of.
Jenette McCurdy’s memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (SIMON & SCHUSTER) is slated for release on August 9, and reveals that her time growing up in Hollywood was not only extremely difficult, but laden with abuse from the very person that should have had her best interests at heart.
Jennette McCurdy’s memoir is less a cathartic outlet, and more an insight into the calm after the storm, of what it meant to be raised in Hollywood as a child actor with an abusive parent.
McCurdy lost her mother to breast cancer in 2013, which led to a lot of lengthy and in-depth therapy. From the actor’s earliest memories, her mother, Debra McCurdy had abusively pushed her into the entertainment industry, encouraging anorexia, among a host of other brutal and damaging ordeals.
McCurdy went on to become a star on Nickelodeon, appearing on the hit show iCarly and Ariana Grande’s two-hander Sam & Cat, later going on to forge a country music career.
In a recent interview with Time, McCurdy shares, “I didn’t sit down with a therapist and say: ‘So I want to write a memoir. How can we get me to a place where I’ve got the perspective to do it?’ But it was several years of really intense therapy before I started feeling like I could explore all that personal stuff creatively.”
McCurdy reflects that it was only upon walking away from Hollywood after her mother had died, that she was able to gain clarity on the situation and begin the healing process and what it meant to become her own person. And a part of the process was in the telling of her own story, which culminated in a one-woman show titled I’m Glad My Mom Died. This later evolved into a memoir of the same name.
McCurdy has shown herself to be a funny and insightful writer – deeply empathetic, and capable of very a solid punchline. Sharing not just all she’s experienced, but most importantly, the wisdom she learned along the way.
I’m Glad My Mom Died (SIMON & SCHUSTER) is set for release on the 9th via all good booksellers.
