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Inside The Tragic Life Of Jennette McCurdy
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00:00Jeanette McCurdy played some squeaky clean characters in her time as one of the most
00:05recognizable faces on children's TV, but her real life was much more tragic.
00:10Here's the dark side of McCurdy's fame and how she's worked hard to come out the other
00:15side.
00:16Sadly, with pretty much any kind of fame comes negative attention from trolls, and Jeanette
00:21McCurdy is no stranger to hateful comments.
00:24The star revealed that she's been the target of some vicious messages via social media,
00:29particularly picking apart her appearance.
00:32In a piece for The Wall Street Journal in 2014, she recalled seeing herself on a magazine cover,
00:37but noticed it had edited her to such an extent she barely even recognized herself.
00:43This triggered her low self-esteem.
00:45She admitted,
00:46I had a two-year span where I was so self-conscious and uncomfortable with my body that I would
00:51dress more provocatively to events and in photos because I looked to comments of praise to fulfill
00:57me and give me the confidence I lacked.
01:00I needed affirmation to feel comfortable.
01:03I was caught up in the whirlwind that is beauty."
01:06McCurdy also addressed hateful social media messages from trolls with a powerful Instagram
01:11post in December 2015.
01:14She intentionally edited her body in a dramatic way to make a point about unrealistic beauty
01:19standards.
01:20This deleted snap showed McCurdy with an impossibly tiny waist and unnaturally smooth skin.
01:26She captioned it,
01:27Instead of camouflaging our flaws and feeling ashamed, let's embrace our strengths and feel
01:33empowered.
01:34Despite her huge success, McCurdy very candidly admitted in February 2021 that she felt ashamed
01:42of her career and embarrassed by her roles that she's played.
01:46So much so that McCurdy quit acting after the death of her mom.
01:50The star made the confession on her Empty Inside podcast while speaking with Anna Faris,
01:55saying,
01:56I resent my career in a lot of ways.
01:59She then referred to her past roles as being cheesy and unfulfilling, adding,
02:04I did the shows that I was on from like 13 to 21, and by 15 I was already embarrassed.
02:11My friends at 15 weren't, like, watching this.
02:14They weren't like,
02:15Oh cool, you're on this Nickelodeon show.
02:17It was embarrassing.
02:19McCurdy made the decision to stop acting full-time in 2013 in the wake of her mom's tragic death,
02:25but she didn't leave the industry completely.
02:28She has acted in a few choice roles since Sam & Cat ended, but shared she's been more focused
02:33on writing and directing since.
02:35She told Faris that her career behind the camera has been, quote,
02:39going great.
02:40As for how she feels about her past roles now, McCurdy told Elite Daily in April 2020,
02:46she wasn't, quote,
02:47fully there yet when it comes to accepting her past.
02:50I still have complicated feelings toward my past from my experience with Nickelodeon.
02:55It's something that I work on.
02:57I'd like to get to a place of peace with my past.
03:00That would be great.
03:02It's safe to say that Jeannette McCurdy hasn't been afraid to admit she didn't exactly relish
03:07her days as a child star.
03:09That was no more apparent than when she opened up with filmmakers Joshua Fields Milburn and
03:14Ryan Nicodemus on her Empty Inside podcast in March 2021, referring to the projects she
03:20was working on as being the biggest source of unhappiness.
03:24McCurdy shared,
03:25She explained that she found it a difficult thing to talk about because she knows how beloved
03:40the shows she starred in are to those who grew up watching them.
03:44I hear constantly that, you made my childhood, and I think it's great that they had that
03:49experience.
03:50But that just was not my experience.
03:53McCurdy went on to call her time as an actor hellish.
03:56She argued that the bold term is not too intense of a word because, as she confessed, she never
04:01really identified with her squeaky clean characters.
04:04Nobody really knew me.
04:06I was very different from the character I was playing.
04:09I'm known as a thing that I'm not.
04:11I walked away for my mental health and for my overall peace.
04:16Jeanette hasn't shied away from getting candid about her experiences with both anxiety and
04:25OCD.
04:26In a June 2017 blog post, she wrote about her nighttime anxiety.
04:31She records that her thoughts were racing and her heart was pounding faster than normal,
04:36seemingly for no logical reason.
04:38She then went on to list a few things that helped calm her down, including taking a warm
04:43bath and breathing deeply.
04:45McCurdy has also shared how her anxiety dates back to when she was a child actor auditioning
04:50for roles.
04:51She told Anna Faris on her Empty Inside podcast in February 2021 that she always found acting
04:58to be difficult because it made her feel so anxious.
05:01I'd have to pee like 15 times.
05:04My heart would just pound.
05:05I'd get so clammy.
05:07Really, it was kind of a battle of nerves.
05:10McCurdy also dealt with OCD as a child, which she spoke about during a September 2020 episode
05:16of Empty Inside, while speaking to influencer Hiram Yarbrough.
05:20I had OCD as a kid and I'd be like, okay, so my still small voice is telling me that I need
05:26to touch this thing 10 times before I touch this other thing 10 times so that I can then
05:31go to the door and open this five times.
05:35McCurdy shared, admitting that small voice would tell her she needed to do it or her mother
05:39would die.
05:41March 2014 saw Jeannette McCurdy face a tough time in the media after personal photos were
05:47leaked to the world, showing her in some compromising positions wearing lingerie.
05:52The private snaps quickly spread across the internet and created a media firestorm of speculation
05:58that the unauthorized release of the photos put a smudge on her squeaky clean image, not
06:03to mention that it had put the future of McCurdy's Nickelodeon hit Sam & Cat in jeopardy.
06:09McCurdy addressed the leak in a since-deleted tweet, which read,
06:12"'To anyone disappointed, I sent those pics to one person.
06:16You can connect the dots.
06:18Shocked someone would stoop so low.
06:20I just speak with candor.'"
06:22It was widely speculated at the time by numerous outlets that the leak could have led to production
06:27on Sam & Cat being shut down.
06:29This was especially after McCurdy skipped out on attending the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards
06:35as the kids' comedy series went on hiatus amid plenty of drama behind the scenes.
06:40However, McCurdy publicly denied the photos had anything to do with her decision not to
06:45appear at the awards in another since-deleted tweet and instead pointed the finger at Nickelodeon
06:51for her absence.
06:52That social media message appeared to bring to the surface an apparently frosty relationship
06:57between the young actor and the big-time network.
07:00Jeanette McCurdy's relationship with Nickelodeon during her time as one of the network's biggest
07:06stars could be described as a rollercoaster.
07:09At best, it's no secret that McCurdy had a contentious time with the Kids' TV network,
07:15and she herself pointed to it in the wake of her leaked photo scandal.
07:19Around that same time in March 2014, McCurdy went public about what was going on behind the
07:25scenes after skipping the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards.
07:28In deleted tweets, she claimed that she'd been put in an uncomfortable, compromising and
07:33unfair situation where she had to, quote, look out for herself.
07:38She added,
07:39I chose to not attend the awards because sticking up for what is right and what is fair is what
07:44my mom taught me is always the most important thing.
07:48She denied she was speaking about the leak and more about how Nickelodeon treated her.
07:53A source told TMZ that McCurdy was supposedly unhappy about her pay, as Grande allegedly
07:59earned, quote,
08:00way more money than her for a very similar role.
08:04Nickelodeon was supposedly not willing to renegotiate McCurdy's contract.
08:09A rep for the network told the outlet,
08:11we have nothing but the utmost respect for Jeanette and her talent.
08:16McCurdy has spoken more about her working relationship since.
08:19She admitted during an episode of Shane and Friends that her short-lived country music
08:23career wasn't something she wanted to do, but something she was told to do.
08:29Jeanette McCurdy hasn't made a secret of the fact that she was faced with serious financial
08:34burdens early on in her career, revealing that she became the main breadwinner for her
08:38family while still just a child.
08:41Speaking on the very telling, fish-out-of-water episode of her Empty Inside podcast in February
08:472021, McCurdy recalled how she started acting at six years old, even though she initially
08:53didn't want to do it herself.
08:55She explained,
08:56At age 10 or 11, I was the main financial support for my family, and it was very much
09:01the pressure of my family didn't have a lot of money, and this was kind of the way out.
09:06You're the ticket out.
09:08You're gonna help our family.
09:09You're gonna be the thing that — you're our only chance.
09:12The star also shared how knowing she needed to work to earn money for her family weighed
09:17on her.
09:18She admitted that the stakes being so high, financially, was actually what motivated her to be so successful
09:25in her acting career.
09:26There's no doubt that the star pulled in plenty of cash from her childhood TV gigs.
09:31According to Celebrity Net Worth, McCurdy is reported to be worth $5 million and earned
09:37$50,000 for each of the more than 90 episodes of iCarly she appeared in between 2007 and 2012.
09:46Jeannette McCurdy was 21 years old when tragedy struck her family in 2013 as her mom, Debra
09:53McCurdy died of cancer, 17 years after initially being diagnosed.
09:59According to TMZ, Debra was found to have breast cancer in 1996, but had some good news when
10:04she went into remission.
10:06However, the cancer sadly returned in 2010 and spread to various places, including her
10:12brain.
10:13A source told the outlet immediately after her death that McCurdy was very close to her mom
10:18and was left devastated.
10:20Jeannette has since opened up about the impact the loss had on her, telling Vulture in 2015
10:26that she would work six days after the tragedy to distract herself.
10:30McCurdy confessed,
10:31"'I was just putting this huge, life-changing event on the back burner, and it was slowly
10:36causing me to unravel to the point where I would say I got to my lowest emotional point.
10:41My mom was my biggest cheerleader, my biggest supporter, and also my hardest critic.
10:47She was very hard on me, but I always knew that it came from a place of love and that she
10:52wanted the best for me.'"
10:54Another bold admission Jeannette McCurdy shared with the world is her horrible alcohol addiction.
11:00The star opened up about how bad things got following her mom's death during a September
11:052020 episode of her Empty Inside podcast.
11:09McCurdy went through three years of hell after her mom's passing, where she experienced bulimia
11:14and turned to alcohol.
11:16She recalled one particularly rough patch when she was drunk in the middle of the street
11:20in France while on a work trip.
11:22She admitted,
11:23"'I was supposed to do a press junket the next day.
11:26I got completely wasted.
11:28I'm literally sitting on a curb and a friend of mine calls me and he explains to me how
11:32to drop a pin, stays on the phone with me until I get back to my hotel in a cab because
11:37he wants me to be safe and knows that I'm passing out in cabs.'"
11:41During this time, she explains that she had, quote,
11:44"...no self-esteem, no confidence, and felt completely lost without her mom."
11:49In April 2020, McCurdy told Elite Daily her alcohol addiction was one of the main reasons
11:55she stepped back from the public eye.
11:57She shared,
11:58"...it dark.
11:59I went off of social media.
12:01I quit acting.
12:02I had to make these pretty big life decisions in order to deal with my stuff, my life."
12:08If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction issues, help is available.
12:13Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's
12:19National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP .
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