Jennette McCurdy is finally opening up about her reasons for stepping back from acting years ago after a falling out on Sam & Cat that made McCurdy look like the villain in a story where Ariana Grande was put on a pedestal and she was made out to be the reason for Nickelodeon canceling the popular show.
With her new book, I’m Glad My Mom Died, releasing on August 9, McCurdy is again confronting news and rumors regarding the end of the show, and an era, as well as her reaction to it all and how she feels about it now, nearly a decade later.
While it was no secret that McCurdy left Sam & Cat on bad terms with Nickelodeon, Grande, and a few others involved with the show, now we’re learning there’s so much more to it, including what she is claiming as exploitation at a very young age.
In new interview with The New York Times, McCurdy opens up about her time on iCarly and its spinoff Sam & Cat, detailing things that happened while she was a part of the Nickelodeon family that weren’t appropriate for a girl her age.
She also points the finger at her own mother, who pushed her into acting as a child against her will.
McCurdy has also claimed that her own mother was a witness to certain events that she believes were not appropriate, but failed to protect her own child.
Jennette McCurdy opens up about exploitation and how it affects her
My whole childhood and adolescence were very exploited,” McCurdy told The New York Times in a new interview ahead of her book launch. “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.”
In the interview, McCurdy even goes on to explain some of the things that happened to her, leading to her accusations of exploitation, including having an “intimidating figure” offer her alcohol and being photographed in a bikini during a wardrobe change when she was still underage.
And while McCurdy says that her mom was often on-set with her when these things would happen, she did nothing to stop them.
McCurdy offered hush money in exchange for her silence
McCurdy also claims in her upcoming book that she was offered a sum of $300,000 in exchange for her silence after the cancellation of iCarly and Sam & Cat.
The agreement was that if she took the payout, she could never comment publicly on what went on during her time on the Nickelodeon shows. In the book, McCurdy claims she responded, “This feels to me like hush money,” at the time.
Obviously, McCurdy rejected the payout and has since been very vocal about what she went through and how it has affected her.