After beginning a journey of self-healing, Jennette McCurdy started to open up about her difficult childhood — and her complicated relationship with various family members.
In her memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette broke down the years of alleged abuse she faced at the hands of mother Debra McCurdy. After the book’s release in August 2022, Jennette addressed her family’s reaction to the title.
“My brothers have been so supportive, so understanding,” she told The Hollywood Reporter about her siblings, to whom she dedicated the book. “They get the title, to put it simply. It was also a title that I knew I wanted early on.”
According to the iCarly alum, the online concerns about the title didn’t faze her in the slightest. “I wanted something that was bold and also something that I meant sincerely. I would never use a bold and attention-grabbing title if it weren’t authentic,” she added. “I would never do it if it were just coming from a flippant place. That’s not my approach to humor. I knew that anybody who had experienced parental abuse would understand the title, and anybody who had a sense of humor would understand the title.”
Jennette previously offered a glimpse at how her dynamic with her family has changed since her mother’s passing. “My relationship with my brothers has been a great source of camaraderie and support for me. My grandfather provided me a lot of love and support,” she told Time that same month.
The California native admitted it took a while for her to feel comfortable discussing her past. “Because it’s so personal, I felt like it was important that I had a lot of experience in therapy,” she continued. “I didn’t sit down with a therapist and say: ‘So I want to write a memoir. How can we get me to a place where I’ve got the perspective to do it?’ But it was several years of really intense therapy before I started feeling like I could explore all that personal stuff creatively.”
Jennette also noted that working through her issues creatively allowed her to get to a better place with her mental health.
“My mind just went: ‘Is it possible to be so full of s–t that you can’t see when you’re full of s–t?’ And then I was like: ‘No, I think I’ve done too much therapy for that,’” she detailed. “I consider myself fully recovered from eating disorders, and I’m really, really proud of that. And yet, I think that elements of my relationship with my mom will always be something that I’m exploring in some way, whether that’s just subconsciously kicking around or whether that’s creatively. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It doesn’t feel retraumatizing for me to explore that relationship creatively.”
Scroll down for a guide to Jennette’s family:
