Jennette McCurdy

Jennette McCurdy stopped acting when her bank account was full, but her mental health was on the verge of collapse. In 2017, she decided she would never stand in front of a camera again to meet other people's demands. It was a decision carried out with precision after years of being the public face of an industry that was consuming her from the inside.

Mass fame came to her with iCarly in 2007. For six seasons she played a character who loved food while she struggled with eating disorders in her private life. The contrast between the sitcom and her home reality was unbearable.

And the bet on retirement paid off.

The silence behind the spotlight

After the end of Sam & Cat in 2014, the actress began to distance herself from her image as a teen star. She appeared in the suspense series Between in 2015, but her interest was already in writing and directing. Before turning thirty, she had already shot short films such as Kenny in 2018, in which she explored grief from a raw perspective.

The industry expected her to return for the reboot of the series that made her famous in 2021. But McCurdy turned down a million-dollar offer to protect her emotional well-being.

She preferred to tell her own story without intermediaries.

Literature as the ultimate refuge

In 2022, she published her memoir titled I'm Glad My Mom Died. The book wasn't after cheap scandal but rather a dissection of a toxic mother-daughter relationship and the pressures of child stardom. It sold more than two million copies in its first year of distribution in the United States alone.

Literary critics praised her direct prose and the absence of self-pity in the account. In 2023, she signed a contract to write her first novel, a work of fiction, moving away from acting for good.

There was no turning back.

The deal with publisher Ballantine Books includes a seven-figure advance for her next two books.