Jennette McCurdy has shared details about a past relationship with a much older man that she found unsettling.
The actress known for her role on iCarly discussed this relationship in a recent interview, coinciding with the upcoming release of her first fiction book, Half His Age, scheduled for January 20.
Now 33, Jennette opened up about this chapter of her life on the Call Me Daddy podcast, revealing that they crossed paths ‘through work’ when she was likely 18 years old.
She mentioned that during this period, her mother was battling breast cancer, and she ultimately chose to end the relationship after her mother’s passing.
“[We met] through work. There’s nowhere to meet anybody else. All I did was work,” Jennette stated, according to PEOPLE. “I think I was 18 by the time he started working on the show. I think. I’m not sure about that. It’s possible I was younger, but I was most likely 18.
“He would show me movies that he thought I would like. Like, Dazed and Confused, which I did not like but I pretended to like. He would play me music that I did not like, but I pretended to like.
“It was just exhausting. I remember he came over drunk one night to my apartment. At this point I’ve moved out of my mom’s, I’m very new – also red flags all over.”
Jennette shared that the man ended things with his girlfriend in order to be with her, but their relationship didn’t last, particularly after he attempted to move into her home while she was tending to her ailing mother.
“I can’t have my dying mother and my boyfriend that she doesn’t know about and would never approve of staying at my apartment at the same time,” she explained.
“We have a dilemma on our hands. He uses the ‘You can’t meet my needs’ thing a lot. I go, ‘OK, I’ll get us a hotel room’.”
Jennette also disclosed that the man, who was in his 30s, pressured her into engaging in oral sex, which she was unfamiliar with.
“I don’t know what that is because I was raised Mormon and because I was homeschooled,” she said.
“He explains to me what it is, and I’m like, ‘That sounds kind of weird. I’m nervous to do this’. He’s like, ‘I’ll guide you through it’.
“At the time, it was really uncomfortable, and it was difficult to regroup and figure out, ‘What was that exactly?’”
Jennette recounted feeling ‘powerless’ in the situation and decided to end the relationship following her mother’s death.
“Can you imagine now being with like a [teenager]? Creepy,” she said.
If you’ve been affected by any of the issues in this article, you can contact The National Sexual Assault Hotline on 800.656.HOPE (4673), available 24/7. Or you can chat online via online.rainn.org