Jennette McCurdy Got ‘Pissed’ at Ariana Grande for Skipping ‘Sam & Cat’ Filming to Be a Pop Star: ‘F— This’
Jennette McCurdy’s new memoir “I’m Glad My Mom Died” finds the former Nickelodeon star getting brutally honest with her feelings on Ariana Grande, the music icon who briefly starred with McCurdy on the “iCarly” and “Victorious” spinoff series “Sam & Cat.” Grande’s pop star career started taking off during the filming of the show, which only ran for a single season on Nickelodeon.
McCurdy writes that she grew to resent Grande once she “regularly” missed filming “to go sing at award shows, record new songs, and do press for her upcoming album” (via Entertainment Tonight). McCurdy, on the other hand, was left to “angrily hold down the fort.”
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“The week where I was told Ariana would not be here at all, and that they would write around her absence this episode by having her character be locked in a box. Are you. Kidding me,” McCurdy writes. “So I have to turn down movies while Ariana’s off whistle-toning at the Billboard Music Awards? Fuck. This.”
According to McCurdy, she “booked two features during ‘iCarly'” that she “had to turn down because the ‘iCarly’ team wouldn’t write [her] out of episodes to go shoot them.” Grande was allowed to skip episodes to work on her music career.
“This is what it is. Ariana misses work in pursuit of her music career while I act with a box,” McCurdy writes. “I’m pissed about it. And I’m pissed at her. Jealous of her.”
McCurdy continues, “Ariana is at the stage in her career where she’s popping up on every 30 Under 30 list that exists. And I’m at the stage in my career where my team is excited that I’m the new face of Rebecca Bonbon, a tween clothing line featuring a cat with her tongue sticking out. Sold exclusively at Walmart. And I frequently make the mistake of comparing my career to Ariana’s. I can’t help it. I’m constantly in the same environment as her, and she doesn’t exactly try to hide her successes.”
What finally tipped McCurdy over into fully disliking Grande is when the latter came to set once day and revealed she had spent “the previous evening playing charades at Tom Hanks’ house.”
“That was the moment I broke,” McCurdy writes. “I couldn’t take it anymore. Music performances and magazine covers… whatever, I’ll get over it. But playing a family game at national treasure, two-time Academy Award–winner and six-time nominee Tom Hanks’s house? I’m done.”
McCurdy adds that from that moment on “I didn’t like her. I couldn’t like her,” adding, “Pop star success I could handle, but hanging out with Sheriff Woody, with Forrest fucking Gump? This has gone too far. So now, every time she misses work, it feels like a personal attack.”
“I’m Glad My Mom Died” is now available for purchase and has already topped the Amazon bestseller list. The memoir includes several shocking revelations from McCurdy’s years working at Nickelodeon, including one claim that the studio offered her $300,000 in hush money to stay quiet on the alleged abuse she dealt with behind the scenes.
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