What Happened to Jennette McCurdy? Writing Books and TV in 2026

If you were anywhere near a television between 2007 and 2014, you knew Sam Puckett — the butter-sock-swinging, fried-chicken-obsessed troublemaker who stole every scene on “iCarly.” Then the shows ended, the reboot came around without her, and Jennette McCurdy vanished from screens entirely. Except she didn’t disappear. She quit, deliberately, and then built a second career so successful it makes the first one look like a warm-up. Here’s where Jennette McCurdy is in 2026.

01Profile

Full name

Jennette McCurdy

Born

June 26, 1992 (34 years old)

Birthplace

Long Beach, California, USA

Raised in

Garden Grove, California

Occupation

Author, screenwriter, showrunner (former actor)

Best known for

"iCarly" (2007–2012), "Sam & Cat" (2013–2014)

Books

"I'm Glad My Mom Died" (2022), "Half His Age" (2026)

Note the occupation line. Most former child stars who leave the industry describe themselves as “on a break.” McCurdy has been unusually clear that she isn’t — she moved to a different job entirely, and by any measure she’s better at this one.

02The Rise: Nickelodeon’s Breakout Troublemaker

From commercials to Sam Puckett

McCurdy started young. According to her own account, her mother pushed her into auditions as a child, and she made her television debut on “MADtv” at age eight in 2000. A string of guest spots followed through the early 2000s before the role that defined her arrived: Sam Puckett, the sarcastic, chaotic best friend on Nickelodeon’s “iCarly,” which premiered in 2007.

The show was a phenomenon. It ran for six seasons through 2012, and while Miranda Cosgrove’s Carly was the title character, Sam was the one who got the biggest laughs. McCurdy won four Kids’ Choice Awards for the role. For a generation of viewers, she was as recognizable as anyone on television.

The spin-off — and the country music detour

In 2013, Nickelodeon gave Sam her own show, pairing McCurdy with Ariana Grande for “Sam & Cat.” It lasted a single season, ending in 2014 amid widely reported behind-the-scenes friction.

There was also a music chapter that McCurdy has since been happy to leave behind. She signed with Capitol Records Nashville in 2009 and released the EP “Not That Far Away” in 2010; the single “Generation Love” reached the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. She has described the whole episode as a much-regretted country music blip — which tells you most of what you need to know about how she looks back on that period.

03Walking Away From Acting

The exit wasn’t gradual. McCurdy has said she quit acting in 2017 to pursue writing and directing, and she has been consistent since that she does not intend to return.

• 2012"iCarly" ends after six seasons.
• 2013Her mother, Debra McCurdy, dies of cancer. McCurdy has described this as the turning point that made leaving the industry conceivable.
• 2014"Sam & Cat" ends after one season.
• 2017She quits acting to focus on writing and directing.
• 2020Launches the podcast "Empty Inside" and begins performing a one-woman stage show that would become the basis of her memoir.
• 2021Confirms publicly she will not appear in the "iCarly" revival, saying she resents her career and is ashamed of past roles.
• 2022Publishes "I'm Glad My Mom Died," which becomes a global bestseller.

The reasons she has given publicly are blunt. She has said she never wanted to act in the first place — that her mother put her into the business — and that she found the work unfulfilling and the roles embarrassing, describing herself as ashamed of the parts she’d done. When the “iCarly” reboot was announced in 2021, she made clear she wouldn’t be part of it. In an era where nostalgia reunions are the default career move for former kid stars, that was a genuinely unusual decision.

04The Memoir That Changed Everything

A title nobody expected, and a book nobody could stop reading

“I’m Glad My Mom Died” was published by Simon & Schuster on August 9, 2022. The title alone generated a firestorm before anyone had read a page. What was inside turned out to be a precise, darkly funny, extraordinarily unsentimental account of a childhood spent working to support a family and of an abusive relationship with a mother who, McCurdy writes, controlled nearly every aspect of her life — including her eating.

The book was a commercial event on a scale almost nobody predicted for a celebrity memoir. It debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list and stayed at the top for eight consecutive weeks, and it remained on the list for well over a hundred weeks. Rolling Stone reported in July 2025 that it had sold more than three million copies. It was also among the most borrowed titles in American public libraries in 2023 and 2024.

From podcaster to full-time writer

McCurdy launched “Empty Inside” in 2020 and a second podcast, “Hard Feelings,” in September 2023. That one she ended after roughly four months, telling listeners in February 2024 that the format was uncomfortable for her and that writing was more her speed. Reported without spin, it’s a small thing — but it fits the pattern. She has been consistently willing to stop doing work she doesn’t want to do, which is precisely the skill her younger self wasn’t allowed to have.

05What She Is Doing Now

A debut novel, and a second bestseller

On January 20, 2026, Ballantine Books published “Half His Age,” McCurdy’s first novel — the second title in what Publishers Weekly reported in 2022 was a two-book, seven-figure deal. It follows Waldo, a 17-year-old high school senior in Anchorage, Alaska, who initiates a relationship with her 40-year-old married creative writing teacher.

It is not a comfortable book, and that’s the point. McCurdy has said an age-gap relationship she experienced at 18 was a jumping-off point but that the novel is not autobiographical, and she deliberately wrote Waldo as the aggressor to avoid a tidy moral frame. Reviews were mixed but engaged: Publishers Weekly called it provocative, the Guardian described it as bleak and funny, and the New York Times Book Review likened it to a reverse “Lolita.” Commercially it landed hard, debuting at number two on the Publishers Weekly bestseller list with more than 30,000 copies sold in its first week.

Female rage is something we’re not given permission to talk about enough. We’re told to stuff it down, keep it down, keep the smile on. — Jennette McCurdy, Rolling Stone, January 20, 2026

She was equally direct about why she wrote it at all: “I wrote this book because I had so much unprocessed rage about aspects of my own life and my own personal relationships and story,” she told the same outlet.

Showrunning her own life story at Apple TV+

The bigger job is television. In summer 2025, Apple TV+ announced a ten-episode dramedy inspired by “I’m Glad My Mom Died,” written and showrun by McCurdy alongside Ari Katcher. Jennifer Aniston is set to star as Debra, the mother figure, and executive produces through Echo Films; the producing roster also includes Sharon Horgan and Stacy Greenberg for Merman, LuckyChap, and Jerrod Carmichael.

The production has had a bumpy road. Filming had been targeted for autumn 2025, but director Jason Reitman departed the project, reportedly over creative differences with McCurdy about tone. As of mid-2026, Apple has not announced a premiere date. What’s notable is McCurdy’s position in the room: she isn’t the subject being adapted by someone else — she’s the showrunner with final creative authority over her own story. Aniston, who has spoken publicly about her own complicated relationship with her late mother, told the Hollywood Reporter in October 2025 that she and McCurdy bonded over having very similar moms.

On what writing gives her

Asked about the shift from performing to authorship, McCurdy put it about as plainly as it can be put.

Having authority is what I feel from writing. Having power is what I feel from writing. — Jennette McCurdy, Rolling Stone, January 20, 2026

She maintains an active official Instagram presence at @jennettemccurdy, where she has promoted “Half His Age,” and links to it from her official site.

06Summary

Jennette McCurdy is the rare former child star whose second act isn’t a comeback, a reunion special, or a redemption arc. It’s just a different job, done extremely well.

The kid who was told what to be for two decades now spends her days deciding what other people’s stories look like on the page and on screen. For anyone who watched Sam Puckett every afternoon after school, that’s a stranger and far better ending than the industry usually writes.