Mom Debra McCurdy got Jennette and her member Marcus an audition with kid endowment cause Barbara Cameron (Kirk and Candace's mom) but Barbara lone wanted to motion Marcus, telling Debra that her girl "lacks charisma," Jennette wrote. As devout Mormons, Debra told Jennette to commune for Barbara to judge her, and successful the meantime she convinced the bureau to instrumentality connected her girl too. She subsequently hated the acting people she had to spell to arsenic 1 of the conditions of Barbara signing her.

When she booked a occupation arsenic a inheritance histrion astatine the property of 6, her ma informed her that—as her representative—"Mommy's not gonna instrumentality immoderate of your wealth but for my salary, positive essentials." She neglected to accidental what "essentials" were. "This time was stressful and not fun, and if fixed the choice," Jennette wrote, "I would take to ne'er bash thing similar it again."  

Jennette was working, but they were tiny roles that didn't fulfill her mother. After processing a spot of a crush connected Frankie Muniz when she had a impermanent spot on Malcolm & the Middle in 2003, Jennette wondered successful her prayers if her "impure thoughts" astir the actor had made her undeserving and were preventing her from getting bigger parts.

Debra told an 8-year-old Jennette that taking bath breaks was unprofessional, but 1 time she could not clasp it immoderate longer and asked support to spell usage the toilet. As she was going, she tearfully apologized to her mother, who inactive insisted connected wiping her down for her due to the fact that she didn't spot the kid to do it properly.

Jennette wrote that she spent 5 years dreading showers, that astatine 12 her ma was still showering her. Debra would besides springiness her a "breast and 'front butt' exam," Jennette described, noting that her ma explained she was checking her thorax and backstage parts for cancerous lumps. "I usually conscionable effort and deliberation of Disneyland erstwhile Mom's doing the exams," she wrote, noting that she felt a "huge question of relief" erstwhile they were over.

After tearing up people during an acting people once, connection got astir that Jennette could outcry connected cue—which, needless to say, was "not fun" for her, she wrote. "It was 1 of the much miserable experiences of my life, sitting successful a acold casting bureau imagining tragic events that harm my beloved family." She memorably cried her eyes retired astatine her audition for 2003's Hollywood Homicide, starring Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett—which she did get.

After an unsuccessful audition for the CBS procedural Without a Trace, which premiered successful 2002, Jennette told Debra she didn't privation to enactment anymore. Debra countered that it was her favourite happening successful the world. When she insisted it was not, Debra got hysterical, sobbing, "You can't quit! This was our chance! This was ouuuuur chaaaaance!"

Debra kept insisting Jennette deterioration a "fuzzy pinkish garment with a rhinestone bosom successful the halfway of it, achromatic faux-leather skorts, and achromatic gogo boots" to auditions, adjacent though, she wrote, she told her ma the outfit made her consciousness "like a street-walker."

She wore those apparel to a Grey's Anatomy audition, but they wanted a plainer look—so the casting manager had her adjunct lend Jennette his flannel shirt. She got a call-back but yet didn't get the part. When Debra demanded to cognize why, her daughter's cause (no longer Barbara by then) told her that the casting manager said Jennette was "too pretty" for that peculiar role. And, she wrote, "I've never seen Mom beryllium blessed I didn't get a role, ever"—until then.

When Jennette excitedly told her parent she'd written a screenplay, Debra discouraged her, informing her that galore writers were frumpy and she didn't privation her butt to get fat.

Jennette freaked retired erstwhile she started processing breasts, frightened because she was lone 2 erstwhile her parent was diagnosed with bosom crab and she wondered if she was feeling cancerous growths. Debra assured her it was earthy development, but that she could halt them from getting bigger by restricting her calorie consumption. When she showed up astatine the doctor's bureau weighing 61 pounds when she was astir 12, her parent assured the acrophobic doc that she would get Jennette to devour more—which, Jennette wrote, was a lie.

When she got her archetypal period, Jennette's wrote that her effect was to resume her anorexic behaviors, not acceptable for her assemblage to bash big things.

On the Generation Love Tour successful enactment of her 2011 azygous of the aforesaid name, she ate enough to consciousness afloat for the archetypal time in years, which near her confused—she felt good, but besides ashamed and frightened of what her parent (whose crab had returned, making her incapable to spell with Jennette connected tour) would say. Sure enough, she recalled, erstwhile she got location Debra told her she was "getting chunky."

When Jennette was on iCarly, which premiered successful 2007, she felt that she was being sexualized connected the show. The Nickelodeon series' wardrobe decorator told Jennette that "The Creator"—how Jennette refers to this man throughout the book—specifically wanted her to deterioration bikinis adjacent though she felt much comfy successful a one-piece bathing suit, she recalled. She felt highly uncomfortable with her body, self-conscious that she was inactive truthful tiny but also, she wrote, "terrified of being looked astatine arsenic a intersexual being."

"The Creator" pressured her to drink intoxicant erstwhile she was 18, she alleged, telling her that it was fine, that the kids connected Victorious got drunk unneurotic each the clip and "'the iCarly kids request a small edge,'" Jennette wrote.

On different occasion, she and "The Creator" were talking astir Jennette moving connected from iCarly to star on her ain amusement (which didn't extremity up happening the mode she said she was promised), and Jennette remembered that he started massaging her shoulders. "I privation to accidental something, to archer him to stop," she wrote, "but I'm truthful frightened of offending him."

She ne'er identifies "The Creator" by name.

Talking to the New York Times about her book, Jennette said, "My full puerility and adolescence were precise exploited. There were cases wherever radical had the champion intentions and possibly didn't cognize what they were doing. And besides cases wherever they did—they knew precisely what they were doing."

E! News has reached retired to Nickelodeon arsenic good as iCarly and Sam & Cat creator Dan Schneider's cause and lawyer for remark but person not yet received a response. Schneider and the web cut ties in 2018. The New York Times reported respective years aboriginal that a ViacomCBS investigation turned up allegations of verbal abuse, but recovered nary grounds of intersexual misconduct, earlier they parted ways. Schneider denied leaving Nickelodeon connected atrocious presumption and told Times successful 2021, "I couldn't, and I wouldn't person the semipermanent friendships and continued loyalty from truthful galore reputable radical if I'd mistreated my actors of immoderate age, particularly minors."

By the clip Sam & Cat, which lone lasted 1 season, was shooting its last fewer episodes successful 2014, Jennette wrote, "The Creator" wasn't allowed to beryllium connected acceptable with the actors anymore and was relegated to a small country off-stage to ticker what they were shooting remotely, web punishment for "accusations of his affectional abuse. I consciousness similar it's been a agelong clip coming, and should person happened a batch sooner."

As the amusement was winding down, Nickelodeon offered her $300,000 to—as she recalled however it was explained to her—"'never speech publically astir your acquisition astatine Nickelodeon.'" She turned it down. (Nickelodeon has not responded to requests for comment.)

Jennette besides called B.S. connected rumors that the amusement ended due to the fact that she was upset Ariana was getting paid much than she was. But "whatever," she wrote. "They've got to blasted someone, truthful they've chosen me, and there's thing I tin bash astir it."

After her mother's death, Jennette wrote that she was gladsome she was excessively upset to eat. "At slightest I consciousness bladed and invaluable and bully astir my body," she wrote, "my smallness." But erstwhile she went retired to meal with friends not agelong after, she ate everything she ordered and downed a vessel of sake. Realizing aboriginal that she could conscionable propulsion it each up, she recalled feeling "victorious," reasoning it was "the commencement of thing good."

Drinking heavy to assistance her bulimia became a habit. As filming on Sam & Cat wound down successful 2014, she conscionable started to presume she'd person a bulimia-induced bosom attack. "It's hard to admit it," she wrote, "but a portion of maine really wishes I would. Then I wouldn't person to beryllium present anymore."

She realized she was bingeing and purging 5 to 10 times a time and taking 8 oregon 9 shots of intoxicant each night. Identifying reddish carpet anxiousness arsenic 1 of her triggers, her eating upset therapist started accompanying Jennette to events—which for awhile followed a pattern: Binge nutrient backstage and outcry successful the car connected the mode home.   

Eventually she fired that therapist implicit text, inactive uncomfortable delving into her puerility trauma. The bulimia continued and Jennette's teeth started to rot. Spitting out a molar successful the bathroom on a formation to Sydney, Australia, to bash property for Netflix—followed by the Uber operator playing Ariana's "Focus connected Me" successful the car upon her arrival—was a wake-up call. Her adjacent therapist assured her that relapses were mean en way to semipermanent recovery.

Debra told her girl erstwhile she was a kid that she astir apt should've joined 1 of the different men she'd dated alternatively of Jennette's father, Mark. "I was destined for a bully life," Jennette remembered her saying. "For fame and fortune." Debra ended up funneling her hopes and dreams of acting stardom onto Jennette's shoulders.

After her ma died and Mark was astir to remarry, he told Jennette and 2 of her brothers that helium wasn't their biologic father. When she yet got up the nervus to inquire who the antheral was, Mark said helium didn't know, lone that Debra had an affair.

But Jennette was yet capable to way him down online, a trombone subordinate who'd played connected a fig of movie soundtracks. She went with a mates of friends, including former iCarly co-star Miranda Cosgrove, to conscionable him for the archetypal clip at a jazz performance helium was playing in. He told her he did know astir having children with Debra, that they had really battled for custody aboriginal connected (her ma won), but that helium wasn't definite if she oregon her brothers would privation to perceive from him, truthful helium conscionable waited for them to scope out.

Throughout the book, Jennette detailed her adjacent relationship with Miranda, who was yet 1 of the fewer trusted radical she opened up to astir her eating disorder. Jennette said that Miranda was super-supportive, but it was besides stressful knowing that the histrion was intimately watching her nutrient intake. Keeping it each a concealed was easier.

Miranda approached Jennette to bash an iCarly reboot, assuring her they'd beryllium paid equally, but Jennette turned it down, telling the series' prima that her "mental wellness and happiness" fell into the class of things much important than money.

In effect to Jennette's account of her upsetting experiences portion making iCarly, Miranda told The New York Times recently, "When you're young, you're truthful successful your ain head. You can't ideate that radical astir you are having overmuch harder struggles."