In a recent passage from her upcoming memoir, Im Glad My Mom Died, actress Jennette McCurdy alleges she was once paid $300,000 in hush money to assure that she would not publicly mention her time at Nickelodeon or experiences with a man she worked with, referred to as The Creator (via Vanity Fair).
In the late 2000s and the early 2010s, McCurdy was a major personality on Nickelodeon. She first appeared on the show iCarly and later reprised her role in the brief spin-off Sam and Cat, which also starred Ariana Grande. The newly released chapter of Im Glad My Mom Died features moments from a meal McCurdy and The Creator shared when devising the Sam and Cat spin-off, as well as a scene from the show’s last hours after The Creator was accused of misbehavior.
After finding that Sam and Cat had been cancelled after just one season, McCurdy is shown in the sample feeling relieved. McCurdy claims that during a conference call with her various lawyers, managers, and agents, her team informed her that Nickelodeon was also making an offer of $300,000. One of her managers allegedly responded, “They’re giving you $300,000, and the only thing they want you to do is never talk publicly about your experience at Nickelodeon.” Specifically connected to The Creator, McCurdy adds a line after this quotation.
McCurdy claims she rejected the hush money offer right away, however she subsequently acknowledged she had second thoughts. She writes, “Nickelodeon is paying me $300,000 in hush money to not talk publicly about my experience on the show,” but even so. My own firsthand knowledge of abuse by The Creators? This network features kid-friendly programming. Shouldn’t they possess a moral compass of some kind? Shouldn’t they at least make an effort to adhere to a code of ethics?
The Rolling Stones did not receive a response to a request for comment from a Nickelodeon representative right away.
McCurdy describes an awkward dinner she had with The Creator prior to the commencement of Sam and Cat in another section of the extract. She alleges that The Creator forced her to consume wine while she was still 18 years old during the meal and then put a hand on my knee. The Creator allegedly began stroking McCurdy’s shoulders and massaging her after removing his coat because he thought she was cold. McCurdy writes, “I want to say something, to tell him to stop, but I’m so afraid of offending him.
When discussing her time on Sam and Cat, McCurdy is open and honest about how she dealt with her mother’s death in 2013, her battles with bulimia, her loss of passion for acting, and her worry that her time on Nickelodeon would pigeonhole her for the rest of her career. I feel like it’s been a long time coming and should have happened a lot sooner, she adds as she recalls the aftermath on the set after The Creator got into difficulty over allegations of his emotional abuse.
McCurdy claimed that one of The Creators’ punishments included forbidding him from spending time with any of the performers on production. I recognize how much trouble he’s caused. She continues, “The Creator sits in a small cave-like chamber off to the side of the soundstage, surrounded by stacks of cold cuts, his favorite snack, and Kids Choice Awards, his most valued life achievement. It wasn’t just a slap on the wrist sort of thing.”
In the excerpt, McCurdy never refers to The Creator by name. Dan Schneider, who oversaw several popular Nickelodeon shows, was the creator of both Sam and Cat and iCarly. Schneider and Nickelodeon parted ways in 2018 following an inquiry revealed that he could be verbally abusive; there was no evidence of sexual misbehavior, but others stated Schneider could make people feel uncomfortable, saying he emailed minor actors after hours and solicited employees for massages. Schneider denied behaving improperly with coworkers in a 2021 interview with The New York Times. Schneider’s representative did not respond to Rolling Stones’ request for comment regarding the extract from “I’m Glad My Mom Died.”
