When Paramount+ announced they would be rebooting the popular Nickelodeon show iCarly, one member of the cast was missing from the list. Jennette McCurdy, who portrayed Carly’s best friend on the show, won’t be returning to the screen. McCurdy said that she was done with acting, something she had been doing since she was six, and her iCarly character Sam had also gotten the spin-off show Sam & Cat with Ariana Grande. But now, McCurdy says she was immensely jealous of Grande’s career at the time of their show.
McCurdy addressed her jealousy towards Grande on an episode of her Empty Inside podcast with special guest Mike Birbiglia. McCurdy detailed how Grande’s music career had taken off while they were still filming Sam & Cat‘s first season. There would even be instances that Grande had to miss filming in order to perform at awards shows:
“I was on a Nickelodeon show and initially I had been told, ‘Oh, it’s going to be your show.’ And then a couple week before hand they were like, ‘We’re going to make it a two-hander and your co-star is going to be Ariana Grande.’ I kind of knew her, she had been on another Nickelodeon show and I had seen her at events and things but I didn’t know her well. Then we started the show and her explosion to Ariana Grande fame happened during our first 20 episodes. She would have to miss work because she was pulled in all directions. She’s gotta do the radio shows, she’s gotta do Billboard Awards, the Grammys. She’s performing at the Grammys and I’m, like, acting on this show with a box because they decided for that week her character had to be trapped in a box so she can go perform at the Grammys.
Despite McCurdy’s jealousy at the time, she was finally able to overcome her negative feelings with the help of Birbiglia’s 2016 movie Don’t Think Twice, which he wrote and directed. “I was like, ‘I deserve more.’ I didn’t even want to do music, like pop star things, so I don’t know why I was comparing myself to that person,” she said. “But seeing your movie was really helpful to process the bitterness and jealousy and wondering why is it there. It motivated me to work on myself more and work on getting to the bottom of why I’m comparing myself to this person, why being me not enough.”
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4zkIpEzatKClq4xTIKeCZg?si=fa11866227974037
Listen to McCurdy’s full Empty Inside podcast episode above.
