Last year, America’s Nickelodeon child star Jennette McCurdy released her memoir ‘I’m Glad My Mom Died’ and it exploded, becoming a number one New York Times Best Seller. Hugely famous in the US starring in ‘iCarly’ and alongside Ariana Grande in ‘Sam and Cat’, no one would have guessed that behind the all smiles, successful glitz of child fame, Jennette was being unbearably controlled by her mother who was obsessed with Jennette becoming famous. 

In the book, which is full of dark humour, Jennette gives a detailed account of the unbelievable difficulties she went through as a child including being put on calorie restriction, her puberty being denied, being given extensive makeovers like teeth whitening to try and keep her looking as young as possible and being inspected and showered by her mum until she was 16. There were also the problems that came with being a child star, her Nickelodeon experience and being forced to go through gruelling auditions from the age of 6. 

The abuse Jennette went through as a child changed her but how she has gone about changing her life since her mom's death and having lots of therapy is incredible. Her account of her early life is absolutely not what you would expect from someone who seemingly had it all. Here, she candidly talks to Annie about her biggest changes and what she’s learnt through it all. 

Content warning: child abuse and eating disorders.

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