Jennette McCurdy is reflecting on the “addictive” affair she had with a much older man when she was a teenager.
The actress famously played Sam Puckett in the Nickelodeon sitcom iCarly from 2007 to 2012. She later starred in the spin-off Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande.
Years after retiring from acting, she released a bombshell memoir titled I’m Glad My Mom Died. The book, which ranked number one on The New York Times Best Seller list, detailed her rise to fame as a child star and her troubled relationship with her mother.
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In a recent appearance in the Call Her Daddy podcast, Jennette unpacked another complicated aspect of her time on TV, particularly her “creepy” relationship with an older man she’d met on the iCarly set.
The star said she was 17 or 18 when she became involved with the unnamed man, who was in his mid-30s.
Jennette recalled that her colleague often “hung out [with her] in the writers’ room after work” and that they grew closer after he began recommending different movies to her.
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“He would show me movies he thought I would like, like Dazed and Confused, which I did not like but pretended to like. He would play me music I did not like but pretended to like,” she said on Wednesday (January 7).
The 33-year-old said she now feels like an “idiot” about the age-gap romance, explaining that the “twisted” man was living with his girlfriend at the time.
“[I got] these half-hour pockets [of his time], and I had to be at his every beck and call. When he calls, I go. … It was just exhausting,” she recalled.
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The man told Jennette he was willing to break up with his girlfriend for her. However, by that point, she was already emotionally drained and “couldn’t do it anymore.”
The Nickelodeon alum described herself as “Mormon and homeschooled.”
She said she had planned not to sleep with anyone before marriage because she didn’t feel “mature” or “ready.”
Eventually, she disregarded her “self-imposed” rule due to a “nuanced power dynamic” in the relationship.
Jennette suggested that the man had pressured her into sleeping with him by making a series of comments that implied his needs were more important than her boundaries.
“There were phrases like, ‘I’m a mid-30s man and this is something I need. I’m respectful of your boundary that you can’t have s*x before marriage, but I also have needs of my own.’
“I did not know what ‘come’ was,” Jennette continued. “Now, it’s funny but at the time it was difficult to kind of regroup and figure out, ‘What was that exactly?’”
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The man would shower her with praise, calling her “mature” and telling her, “I can’t talk to anyone this way. I can’t believe how smart you are,” along with similar comments that she now views as manipulative in hindsight.
The Malcolm in the Middle actress explained that being intimate with her colleague felt “addictive,” saying, “That’s the thing that I’m chasing. My nervous system is hijacked, waiting for [it]. After, there’s the crash. Then it ramps up again in anticipation for the next. Once that tapered off is really when the relationship tapered off.”
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She and the man stopped seeing each other after her mother, Debra McCurdy, passed away from breast cancer in 2013. Some time later, they reconciled “for a second.”
The author used the toxic affair as inspiration for her debut novel, Half His Age, set to be published on January 13.
She explained that writing about the relationship ultimately gave her closure.
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“I didn’t realize how angry I still was. I didn’t think of this person ever that I was in a relationship with at all. He wasn’t on my mind. Then I’m writing this book … because I have so much anger, so much left to process,” she described.
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Jennette began acting at the age of eight in the comedy sketch show Mad TV. Before her iCarly breakthrough, she appeared in shows such as CSI, Zoey 101, Will & Grace, and Law and Order SVU.
In 2018, she stepped away from the spotlight to focus on writing and directing. Four years later, in 2022, she published her first book, a best-selling memoir about her “narcissistic” mother, which is set to be adapted for TV with Jennifer Aniston portraying Debra McCurdy.
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In the book, Jennette accused her late mother of emotional and physical ab*se, including forcing her into acting, controlling her appearance, performing what she described as “vaginal and breast exams” on her, and teaching her calorie restriction starting at age 11.
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“I’m able to just miss her sometimes, which is something I will take full credit for,” she said on the podcast, adding that she doesn’t “feel anger” toward her late mother anymore.
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