Jennette McCurdy Unveils Her Hard Feelings About the Child Star Industrial Complex in New Podcast

Last year, former actor Jennette McCurdy broke records with her bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died. In it, McCurdy reveals how her relationship with her overbearing mother forced her into the high-performing, and high-profile, life required of a child star. At the expense of her sense of self, including her self-esteem, boundaries, and identity, she met her burgeoning career with the pluck and promise her mom expected of her at such a young age. But, through therapy and the process of writing her book, McCurdy has taken massive steps to recover her voice, dusting off the diamond flecks to reveal the etches the industry, her mother, and the public have left behind. Following the success of I’m Glad My Mom Died, McCurdy continues to share her story in a new creative venture she’s spearheaded, alongside the podcast production company Lemonada Media, in an intimate series of voice memos called Hard Feelings.

Throughout the show’s first five episodes, Jennette McCurdy expresses the pain, frustration and effects of celebrity culture. Another main element to McCurdy’s story is one to which many people with difficult relationships with their original caretakers can relate: having to contend with the discrepancy between who you want a parent to be, who you need them to be on an almost biological level, and who they are—realistically—on a human level. Now, in her podcast, she courageously works on accepting how much these abuses have informed her life. With what sounds like very little editing on the part of her Lemonada team, the final product feels private, like a stream-of-consciousness moment of entrusting a dear friend with a vulnerable secret. 

A prevailing theme amongst those with a history of unhealthy relationships, especially young stars churned out by the Hollywood machine, is the inability to discern where they begin and others end. Imposing boundaries on one’s own body, time and attention was so far out of the question for budding talents, when these very attributes were negotiated within an inch of their life by armies of in-house, corporate legal counsel. While holding McCurdy’s mother fully accountable for her actions—from grooming her to “be a star,” to creating an environment which silenced McCurdy’s voice within matters of her own personal agency—her mother’s practices are just as much a reflection of the industry itself than they are her mom’s individual choices. Through her hit of a book, and now through this podcast format, McCurdy explores the nuance of unlearning harmful conditioning and learning to find her voice and identity amidst fame, and the public’s unrelenting obsession with the life she led at 13 years old.

It’s important to view the unregulated entertainment industry through the lens of its survivors, as so many former child stars are now encouraging with other similar projects, ones meant specifically to blow the lid off an exploitative system and show how we all contribute to its sins, aiding and abetting its abhorrent, malicious and inhumane tactics. The privilege is not lost of me, as someone who directly benefits from celebrity culture, to call for the end of media-hungry tabloids, to focus on the story of the art itself and not the artist, dancing to the sounds of the monkey’s cymbals crashing without thinking about their tears fueling each bang. McCurdy’s Hard Feelings takes the listener through the moveable moment-to-moment challenges resulting from this complex and unusual upbringing as an exceptional child in the spotlight. Told with McCurdy’s deliciously wry, dark humor for which fans have come to love, the podcast demonstrates this gifted storyteller’s aptitude to translate her skills from the page to the airwaves. 

In Episode One of the podcast Dear Hollywood, former child star Alyson Stoner exposes something she calls the Toddler-to-Trainwreck pipeline. Beyond the physical demands, education gap, and other impediments to these young actors’ development, their sense of identity has zero chance to get a foothold in their early years, due to the pressure and loose grip on reality that comes with performance. The nature of playing “make believe” within a new brain instills an all-too-common crisis of self and purpose in many young performers, resulting in addiction and other unstable behaviors. However, brave voices like Stoner—as well as Christy Carlson Romano in her podcast, Vulnerable, where she interviews former child stars about their experiences in the industry as a young person—finally are holding institutions like Disney and Nickelodeon responsible for their predatory practices. The messages of these shows reveal that, while we can’t stop looking at celebrities when they’re at both the peak of glamor and the troughs of despair, we don’t see them as human beings. 

With grace, and the raw intimacy of a friend who outwardly processes their complex trauma, by sending audio recordings back and forth (yes, we do this!), McCurdy reevaluates and reorients herself to expectations for her art and her path of personal growth. She delivers the exacting, unfiltered enumeration of her internal conversations, with the topics of discussion paralleling the titles of each episode, including—by design in all lowercase—“shame,” “pressure,” “loyalty” and, most recently, “egg freezing.” The episode titled “bad mood” was a favorite of mine for how well it navigates the ambiguity and lack of closure involved in those sour moments, where resolution is not the goal, so much as the full expression of the individual’s human experience. 

Scathing, and with an unflinching dose of calling for reform, these long-time veterans of the industry are extending a lifeline to the countless others who didn’t have someone advocating for their protection. For Judy Garland. For Britney Spears. Brittany Murphy. Drew Barrymore. Amanda Bynes. Aaron Carter. The Olsen twins. Lindsay. Macaulay. Demi. Miley. For instance, in the first episode of Dear Hollywood, Stoner cites a list of 17 states without proper laws surrounding child labor in entertainment, the very states production companies are rushing to film their next projects. Stoner, Romano and McCurdy approach their work with the sensitivity of activists leading a social movement, because they are. By providing information, sharing personal anecdotes or bringing on guests, these mavericks are writing a blueprint for survival for those still in the throes of the industry pressures, as well as those who got out but are having difficulty letting go.

A message to all who are on a mission to move on from something in their past and start anew, Hard Feelings delivers just what the title suggests, a demonstration on how to move through difficult emotions in real time, with humor, compassion and a renewed sense of purpose.