Jennette McCurdy tells it like it is. In her new book, I’m Glad My Mom Died, the iCarly star takes that candor to the extreme. From the memoir’s provocative title to its straightforward present-tense description of her allegedly abusive mother and creepy execs at Nickelodeon, McCurdy leans into the dark, and sometimes darkly comic, truths of her past. And one of those truths lies in the highly publicized excerpts where she admits that her Sam and Cat co-star Ariana Grande’s ascendent career made the then-21-year-old “jealous.” “The week where I was told Ariana would not be here at all, and that they would write around her absence this episode by having her character be locked in a box,” McCurdy writes in the book. “So I have to turn down movies while Ariana’s off whistle-toning at the Billboard Music Awards? Fuck. This.” The kicker? “Ariana misses work in pursuit of her music career while I act with a box,” McCurdy jokes.
McCurdy says that her past, childish jealousy of the “Positions” pop star is actually hilarious if done right. In a recent Vogue interview, McCurdy thinks it’s “funny” that she had to work alongside someone that would soon become very famous. “I’m able to look back on it and just see it as the comedy gold that it is, to be on set at 21, where you’re just the most susceptible to jealousy and comparison that you can possibly be, and I’m there across from a burgeoning pop star of the day,” she says. “Like, that is just so funny to me, and I tried to capture that humor.”
Otherwise, McCurdy finds that the recognition she’s getting for the book hits different than the fame she got from acting. “The people that approach me now, they’ll more than likely share something that they connect with in the book, whether it’s their own history with eating disorders or a narcissistic parent or family dysfunction,” she tells Vogue. “To have that level of humanity, it feels really validating for me, and I hope it’s validating for them.” She’s “open to possibilities,” like adapting the book into a TV series or film. “If you have the number of the CEO of Universal Studios, I don’t know who that is, but text it to me,” she half-jokes. Someone get that phone number, stat.
