Jennette McCurdy, best known for her breakthrough role as Sam in iCarly, is now an established singer, director, and writer. The former actor has recently opened up about her relationship with her mother in her controversially titled memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died. The book quickly became a bestseller, as she recently took to a talk show on television to cover her memoir with a few fellow celebrities.
McCurdy described her relationship with her mother as a “psychological marriage” on Red Table Talk. The iCarly alum spoke with Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith, and Adrienne Banfield on the popular talk show, where McCurdy discusses the abuse her mother put her and her siblings through. “Mom showers me with Scotty sometimes,” she reads aloud from her book. “He’s almost 16 at this point. I get really embarrassed when she showers us together. I can tell he does too.” McCurdy was 11 at this point in her memoir. “We usually just look away from each other,” she continues, explaining how her brother would “distract himself by drawing Pokemon on the fogged glass.” McCurdy kept reading from the excerpt, explaining how, when Scotty asked if he could shower on his own, their mother sobbed, saying she didn’t want him to grow up, causing him to never ask again. The iCarly star kept on pace with the damaging shower rituals, claiming that Debbie, her mother, would give her breast and vaginal exams while in the shower, which Debbie told 11-year-old Jennette was to check for unusual lumps or bumps to make sure she didn’t have cancer.
McCurdy leaves most details and specific rituals for those reading her book. The primary topic of discussion between the four women was the writer’s emotional process, as Jennette was manipulated and forged through her mother throughout her entire childhood. She continued on the show discussing the effects her mother had on Jannette’s personal relationships outside of her family, which she described as a dynamic reflection of her and her mother’s relationship, where she felt “anxiously attached” to others, feeding into the other persons wants and needs and neglecting her own. McCurdy also neglected therapy after her therapist had told her that she was being abused. Jennette didn’t return to therapy until a year later when she was more open and understanding with her professional helper.
Since the death of her mother in 2013, fighting breast cancer, Jennette has learned to overcome the struggles her mother forced upon her at such an early age. McCurdy has since had a successful career in multiple areas of the entertainment industry. Apart from her career, the Sam & Cat alum has opened up about psychologically growing from these experiences. “I worked toward forgiveness for a really long time,” she says, holding back tears, “and my therapist said to me one day, ‘What if you don’t have to work toward forgiveness?’ and I wept and I knew that that’s what I needed to hear.”
