Jennette McCurdy has revealed that her mother forced her to shower with her 16-year-old brother when she was 11 years old. The actress, best known for starring in the popular Nickelodeon series iCarly, opened up about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her late mother Debra in her memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died. She recently appeared on Red Table Talk to talk more about her early life with hosts Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith, and Adrienne Banfield.
- The showering incident was one Pinkett Smith found to be the most “heartbreaking.” She asked McCurdy about the experience, with the 30-year-old reciting from the memoir in which she wrote that she “dreaded showers” because her mother still insisted on bathing her and washing her hair. “Mom showers me with Scotty sometimes. He’s almost 16 at this point. I get really embarrassed when she showers us together. I can tell he does too.”
- McCurdy and her brother were traumatized by the situation. She added that she and Scott would “usually just look away from each other” and that Scotty would “distract himself by drawing Pokemon on the fogged glass.”
- The kids regularly asked to be able to shower themselves. However, Debra refused and manipulated them into allowing the inappropriate and uncomfortable practice to continue. “When she showers us together, Mom says it’s because she’s got too much to do. Scott asked if he could shower himself on his own once. Mom sobbed and said that she didn’t want him to grow up so he never asked again after that,” McCurdy shared.
- The abuse went even further than that. McCurdy also shared that despite her teenage brother being present, her mother would also give her a “breast and front butt exam,” which her mom called her “private parts.” McCurdy read: “She says she wants to make sure I don’t have any mysterious lumps or bumps because those could be cancer.”
- Despite (or perhaps because of) what they went through, McCurdy and Scotty are still close. “I’m so close with all three of my brothers, and they have been such a source of love and support and consistency in my life – where there really wasn’t much anywhere else,” she told Pinkett Smith.
