Summary

• Jennette McCurdy battled eating disorders from a young age.
• Portraying the food-obsessed character Sam Puckett on iCarly while struggling with eating disorders was a difficult.
• McCurdy fought to change Sam Puckett's fixation on food.

If you're a fan of the 2000s hit Nickelodeon sitcom iCarly, then you're probably familiar with just how much Carly's delinquent best friend, Sam Puckett, loved food. Though it's been over a decade since the show wrapped, video clips of Puckett chowing down on all sorts of bizarre food combinations are still scattered all over the internet.

As fans would later learn via her explosive memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died, the actor behind the famed character, Jennette McCurdy, didn’t exactly share Sam’s voracious appetite. Due to the incredibly twisted relationship with her mother, Debra McCurdy, Jennette was already battling eating disorders by the tender age of 11. But could her extremely complicated relationship with food have spawned anxiety around portraying the food-obsessed Sam Puckett?

Did Jennette McCurdy Have An Eating Disorder?

Thanks to her starring role on the hit Nickelodeon sitcom, iCarly, Jennette McCurdy had already become a celebrity by the time she turned 11. But as fans would later learn, the now 31-year-old’s secretly lived a life far darker than anyone could’ve imagined.

“There was this half of my life that was so cheesy and so polished and so glossy and so fake,” she admitted to the Washington Post in a 2022 interview. “And then there was this other part of my life that was so painful and real and raw and hurting, and that part was going completely unseen.”

Due to her exceedingly complex relationship with her mother, Debra McCurdy, whom the former iCarly star claimed controlled everything from her eating habits to her dating life, Jennette had already developed anorexia by the age of 11.

“It's quite unfortunate, but my mom taught me anorexia,” she shared during her September 2022 appearance on Red Table Talk. “She taught me calorie restriction when I was 11.”

Speaking to People in October 2021, McCurdy opened up about the sinister reason she went along with her mom’s outrageous diet plan. "My mom said she could teach me calorie counting and we could be a team, but that I had to keep it secret," she said. "I thought it was an opportunity for my mom and me to be closer."

By the time she secured a spot on iCarly, McCurdy was surviving on as little as 1000 calories a day and would occasionally “eat even less” because she wanted her "mom to be proud.”

Things took an even more sinister turn right after Debra was hit with a second cancer diagnosis. "I swung to binge eating," she shared with People. "I would eat everything in sight. I wanted food so much."

Jennette McCurdy Was Secretly Anxious About Sam Puckett’s Obsession With Food

During her 2022 appearance on Red Table Talk, Jennette delved into the harsh realities of portraying the food-obsessed Sam Puckett, while also battling two debilitating eating disorders.

“It was so confusing at the time. Being caught up in anorexia or binge-eating disorder or bulimia and then, while playing this character who's slinging a fried chicken leg and beating people with a ham sandwich," she said. "It felt like my life was mocking me in a lot of ways, and it was really difficult."

To ensure she remained rail-thin, the now 31-year-old made sure to discreetly dispose of all the food she ended up eating on set. "I'd have scenes where I was supposed to be eating and they'd have a spit bucket,” she told People. “But I'd have terror that there would still be calories left in my body."

Even more tragic is that the now 31-year-old couldn’t share her harrowing experience with anyone. “I had no one to talk about that with because my mom was very clear: This is something to be grateful for. This is what we’ve been working for our whole lives,” she admitted to the Washington Post. “She had all the standard stage mom phrases ready to make sure that if I even expressed the slightest bit of discomfort, it was bam, no, that’s not allowed.”

As for what the iCarly cast and crew thought of her increasingly gaunt physique, Jennette revealed to People, "I don't think I even realized how intense it was, but I'm sure everybody just attributed [her weight loss] to normal body fluctuations."

Jennette McCurdy Fought to Change Sam Puckett's Fixation On Food

With her mother having become such a domineering presence in her life that confiding in anyone was absolutely out of the question, Jennette decided to take matters into her own hands.

“It made me so anxious because my character was constantly eating,” she told the Washington Post. “I tried speaking with the producers on a couple occasions, asking if we could dial back on that stuff.”

Unable to share her real motivations with the producers, the now 31-year-old author had to devise a plausible cover story.

“I had some sort of reasoning like, ‘I think there’s so much more to Sam as a character, and I think she goes much deeper than this,’” she explained. “But I was not capable of facing the eating disorder for myself so, of course, I wasn’t capable of saying, ‘Hey, I’m actually really struggling with this. So, can we not?’”

Thankfully, after years of therapy, McCurdy finally triumphed over her eating disorders. "I haven't binged or purged or restricted in years,” she admitted to People in 2021. “And I feel very deeply and very strongly about saying I've finally recovered."

With the benefit of hindsight, the now 31-year-old began to appreciate the ironic dichotomy between her struggles with anorexia and bulimia and Sam's food obsession.

“At the time, I struggled with my character being so focused on food, being that I was suffering from life-threatening eating disorders,” she explained to The Hollywood Reporter in August 2022. “But now I see it as the true gift of comedy gold that it is. That kind of juxtaposition is just absolutely my sense of humor, where there’s something really tragic that’s underlined by something that’s really polished. It’s hilarious.”