The Untold Story of Jennette McCurdy

for me facing the parts of myself that i felt the most shame about facing those and becoming public with those has been really healing for me and transformative welcome to ms mojo and today we're discussing the untold story of jeanette mccurdy so do you have any advice for me or anything yes definitely therapy a lot of therapy for this video we'll be looking at the life and career of the writer director podcaster and former actress highlighting the shocking details from her new memoir are you reading jeanette mccurdy's book let us know in the comments a rough childhood born june 26 1992 jeanette michelle fay mccurdy grew up in orange county california her parents mark and debra mccurdy were a working class family living in a small house with deborah's parents jeanette along with her three older brothers were homeschooled and attended a mormon church when the actress was just 2 years old deborah was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer of course i sympathize with anybody who experiences cancer that's that's a an incredible struggle but the way that she manipulated her cancer was was very uh obscure breaking into television by the time she was six years old deborah had decided janette was going to live out her own unrealized dream of being an actress wanted me to have a better life than she had but i also think her approach was very unhealthy and informed by her own lack of self-work and she lived vicariously through me debra got her daughter a meeting with talent agent barbara cameron the mother of candace cameron beret she wasn't interested at first but after some strong convincing from deborah and an agreement to start acting classes she took janette on as a client the young girl would later fail and audition for a paula abdul dance video resulting in her mother forcing her to take 14 dance classes each week i call her jungle beast he does so good people don't know she's as good as she is she's a triple threat i'm sorry facts sings and dances whether it was filling her up with red bull or telling jeanette to gain sympathy from the casting director by talking about her mother's cancer debra always had a hand in the process you talked about that at one point in the book you talked about how she was trying to browbeat maybe was it an agent or maybe it was a producer into giving you a role and she said okay now if you need me to pull out the cancer i'll do the winter and i was like oh my god in the year 2000 eight-year-old jeanette mccurdy was cast in her first role she played a parody of cassidy gifford daughter of kathy lee for a mad tv sketch say something you're old good one cass she was also cast in tv commercials as well as guest parts in popular television shows like malcolm in the middle csi crime scene investigation and law order special victims unit she was regularly cast as a young girl going through harrowing circumstances i don't want to talk anymore just a little longer no holly please tell me what's wrong who made me say i'm scared one of her skills was crying on cue an impressive feat for actors of any age however in one particular audition for without a trace she wasn't able to cry when needed feeling upset she told her mom she wanted to quit acting which led to deborah making a scene claiming their family would lose their golden opportunity like so many other child stars her acting paid the bills it felt like a lot of pressure and then i think my mom saw my career as a way out of that life of that way of living of that constant grind needless to say quitting was not an option and jeanette quickly swallowed down her own unhappiness to please her mother debra was known to have outbursts often violent ones not only towards jeannette but to her sons and husband as well so not only was it chaotic because of the abuse that was happening my mom's violent and erratic unstable behavior but also because we all lived in fear of her cancer coming back an unhealthy rise to fame when jeannette was 11 years old she began to develop physically the only thing that would have been worse for me at that time than like hearing that i had cancer was hearing that i was gonna have breasts because growing up meant that i would not be able to pay my family's bills in an effort to delay puberty and keeping her looking young enough for roles her mother put her on a restrictive diet and monitored her weight it really felt to me like we were in a buddy comedy like doing the hand jives and then like eating 400 calories a day like it it felt like the happy montage in a movie only it was this very sick and disturbing situation that i wasn't aware of because i was a child jeanette herself took to weighing herself several times a day you can just feel the pressure of it you can feel everybody kind of body monitoring food monitoring everybody else in the room this was the beginning of her anorexia as well as her obsessive-compulsive disorder behavior jeannette struggled with mental health issues along with having a mother who emotionally and verbally mistreated her later when jeannette underwent therapy as an adult she considered that her mother might have had borderline personality disorder bipolar disorder and narcissistic personality disorder i know she had a lot of struggles when she was young and i also know she had an array of mental health issues that went really just undiagnosed because she refused to get help for any of her mental health issues she likened her mother's years of mistreatment to munchausen by proxy though debra didn't want her daughter to be ill in fact jeannette was forced to work while she was sick even when she caught strep throat six times over the course of one year i could sense concern in people around me and i started piecing together i don't know if reality is mom's reality but i didn't know how to cover charms with that at the age of 13 everything changed for jeanette when she won a leading role as sarcastic sam puckett on the nickelodeon tv series icarly a large part of sam's identity revolved around excessive eating something mccurdy found extremely difficult why do they put a bone right in the middle of a ham mccurdy continued to struggle with disordered eating well into her teens at 14 she was so small that she still had to use a booster seat in the car at 16 janette got her period which triggered her anxieties about aging and caused her to relapse back into disordered eating that sounds unpleasant in a word yeah totally debra remained in control of her daughter's body but not just with eating what do you think was going on i've tried to understand and that didn't lead me anywhere productive i would just spin my wheels trying to understand my mom's motives she insisted on giving jeanette showers until she was 17. deborah also performed invasive quote-unquote exams on jeanette claiming that she was checking for cancer you felt violated yes i absolutely felt violated and eventually accepting that was the most i think integral piece to my own healing and recovery no one knew what jeanette was going through at home not even her close friend and co-star miranda cosgrove deborah didn't approve of their friendship since according to deborah miranda quote didn't believe in god hey who stopped the elephant during the 2007 writer's strike deborah decided her daughter needed to get into music like other teen stars when production on icarly resumed jeannette split her time between la filming during the week and nashville recording music on the weekends [Music] she was planning a tour when her mother learned that the cancer had returned and spread throughout her body debra didn't accompany her on the tour but would not let her cancel when she came back debra made sure to point out jeanette's weight gain by 2012 she was over the whole music endeavor [Music] the creator mccurdy had multiple encounters with the show's creator dan schneider who she calls the creator in her memoir the tv producer allegedly encouraged her to drink alcohol at 18 and gave her an unwanted shoulder massage as smart as you're forced to be from an early age in the entertainment industry you're still naive and it's just it's an adult's game that that i didn't have the tools to play he was also known to be controlling verbally attacking the cast and crew on his shows in a season two episode of icarly mccurdy had her first ever kiss on camera with nathan cress who played freddy well that was um nice yeah nice uh good work thank you you too schneider reportedly made the young actress reshoot the scene several times yelling and demanding various adjustments hey i hate you hate you too schneider promised her a spin-off series titled just pocket however she would ultimately share the spotlight with another young actress hi what's wrong we can't find our cat oh shut up my name is grief and scandal after six seasons icarly ended in november 2012. sam and cat premiered on june 8th 2013. whoa you're standing for my carly yeah now let's get out of here hold on please i think it's the sound of two girls about to be squashed inside a perfect truck the network had ordered 20 episodes but doubled when the show pulled in high ratings jeanette has admitted to feelings of jealousy and resentment towards co-star ariana grande we sort of have this whole fun odd couple dynamic built-in conflict lots of potential for more adventures while jeannette had to turn down film projects due to the show the writers accommodated grande's busy schedule and though she was told early on that she'd have the chance to direct an episode it never happened what's that smell that's you and me from swimming in garbage during this time debra went back into the hospital she would pass on september 20th 2013 when jeannette was just 21. her grief led to alcohol consumption binge eating and bulimia which she would struggle with for years because mom was my everything mom was the greatest thing that ever happened to me i need to love mom i need to adore mom and so i kept just clinging to the narratives that she'd conditioned me to have after her mom's death she learned that mark mccurdy was actually not her biological father she would also briefly date nba star andre drummond and in march 2014 had private photos of her leaked a month later sam and cat was put on hiatus what's it taste like like crapple upon the series official cancellation in july 2014 nickelodeon offered mccurdy 300 000 the deal was that she couldn't talk about any negative experiences she had on set luckily the actress refused what felt to her like hush money i am ultimately proud of of my decision there wherever it came from even if it was informed by self-righteousness i think that i think i did something that was really hard to do oh my god it makes emotional i'm proud of myself post-nickelodeon projects and therapy in august of 2014 mccurdy wrote produced and starred in her own web series what's next for sarah inspired by her own experiences in the industry the role is going to dakota fanning i'm sorry but sarah remember we do not validate in this building you have to pay cash in 2015 she was cast in netflix's sci-fi thriller between the series lasted just two seasons but by that time mccurdy was ready to leave her acting career behind it'll be all right no yeah before mom died i promised i'd have everything organized we both knew you wouldn't have anything planned so thanks in 2017 she made the decision to quit acting in order to focus on writing her mental health and recovery she made her directorial debut in 2018 with her short film kenny and i'm just handling one thing right now no i wasn't talking to you tomorrow no exception you really need to come down here did you hear me okay now before we continue be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified about our latest videos you have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them if you're on your phone make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications jeanette mccurdy today in 2020 jeannette turned a series of essays into a one-woman show called i'm glad my mom died it's sort of about a lot of this material that we're actually talking about today like my mom's influence on my life and how she really lived vicariously through me and i felt a complete responsibility to live my life for her she performed in los angeles and new york city until the covet 19 pandemic forced her to take a break that same year she started empty inside an interview podcast around the same time she declined to reprise her role as sam for the 2021 icarly revival because she associated her time on the show with her years of trauma i need sam but she's off following her bliss with that biker gang the obliterators oh she's okay it's sam i hope they're okay since 2011 janette has written essays for the wall street journal and the huffington post detailing child stars in the industry her mother's battle with cancer and her years of disordered eating now in 2022 at 30 years old jeanette mccurdy has published her memoir based on her previous stage show of the same name the provocative title alone has made headlines as has the dark truth behind her years as a nickelodeon star the more uncomfortable something was for me to put on the page the more important it felt for me to put it on the page that kind of honesty has been truly liberating for me and has led me to a life of fulfillment and authenticity that i hope for everybody check out this other recent clip from ms mojo and be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos [Music]

Channel: MsMojo

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Keywords: celebrity, dan schneider, i'm glad my mom died, icarly, jennette mccurdy, jennette mccurdy book, jennette mccurdy career, jennette mccurdy childhood, jennette mccurdy memoir, jennette mccurdy mother, jennette mccurdy shows, jennette mccurdy today, jennette mccurdy untold story, list, miranda cosgrove, mojo, msmojo, nathan kress, nickelodeon, sam & cat, sam puckett, the creator, the untold story of jennette mccurdy, top 10, watch mojo, watchmojo

Id: CGbRY3wVAu8

Length: 15min 36sec (936 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 17 2022