For years, Jennette McCurdy was one of the biggest names in Nickelodeon. But in 2014, things changed.
Around that time, Jennette had a sexy selfie leak by mistake. She was 21 at the time, but it broke the Nickelodeon image that she was known for. She was also reportedly fighting with her Sam & Cat costar, Ariana Grande, around that time.
That year, she refused to show up to the network's Kids' Choice Awards. And she made the reason why public.
"It has to do with how Nickelodeon treated me, that's all," she said, per the Daily News. "I chose to not go because sticking up for what is right and what is fair is what my mom taught me is ALWAYS the most important thing," she said. "No matter who or what you support, I believe in supporting fairness first."
While her mom was right about that, it seemed as if Jennette was hiding something else around that time — and that was physical and mental abuse at the hands of her mother.
Jennette is currently in the midst of performing a set of one-woman shows called I'm Glad My Mom Died. It's a sad and revealing title, but Jennette isn't afraid to open up about the real relationship the two of them shared. Her mom, Debbie, died of cancer in 2013.
"My earliest memories of childhood were of heaviness, and chaos," Jennette told People. "My mom's emotions were so erratic that it was like walking a tightrope every day. The mood fluctuations were daily."
She also admits that she often saw her parents fight, and her mom usually ended up getting physical. Supposedly, Debbie wanted to be an actress. So that's the direction she pushed Jennette in.
"My mom had always dreamt of being a famous actor and she became obsessed with making me a star," Jennette revealed.
As a child, Jennette was extremely shy. But she still went on auditions since she knew it would please her mother.
"I felt like my job was to keep the peace," she said. "And I wanted to make my mom happy." This all started when she was only 6.
The pressure to perform got intense. By the age of 10, Jennette was having her hair and teeth bleached. Her childhood wasn't like that of most kids. Her mom also put a lot of pressure on Jennette for her weight. At the age of 11, she started focusing on counting calories. This turned into a full eating disorder, which Jennette suffered from while filming iCarly.
Debbie was also incredibly protective of Jennette, to the point where she never let her shower alone. She also performed vaginal and breast exams on Jennette when she was 17. It's almost like she wasn't allowed any privacy in her home. It's almost as if her body didn't belong to her.
"I know if my mom were alive, I'd still have an eating disorder," Jennette admitted. "It was only distance from her that allowed me to get healthy." Jennette also said that her relationship with her mom left her "repressed and delayed developmentally." It wasn't until Debbie died that Jennette felt free.
Her death caused Jennette to rebel for the first time in her life. She started drinking alcohol as a way to cope.
"I did not know how to find my identity without my mom," she admitted. "And I'm not going to lie. It was very hard to get here. But now, I'm at a place in my life that I never would have thought was possible. And I finally feel free."
The one-woman show is meant to be a way to cope with what happened. As she wrote on her website, the show is "a darkly comedic one-hour one-woman-show" and is focused around "why my mom’s death went from being the worst thing that ever happened to me to the best." Creatively, it's an incredible project for Jennette to take on.
The show has also made Jennette realize that she doesn't hate performing as much as she once thought. As she told Elite Daily, "[I was] thinking, 'Maybe I'll have a different friend do the show every night and wear a wig,' And then I realized that was a terrible idea and that the only person who could do the one-woman show was me. It had to come from me. It's so personal. There's no other choice. And I actually wound up really enjoying the experience of performing. It's kind of reignited my passion for performing."
All in all, it seems like she's doing the best she can to focus on her health and recovery. "I had to come to peace with [my mom's death] first," she added. "And then it's like, 'OK, now I can kind of get [to other things].' I had to fix the eating disorder, and now I can kind of get to the other stuff. It was a little bit lower on the priority list but it's now more of a priority."
It seems like Jennette finally has full control.
