Actress (and now writer) Jennette McCurdy is opening up concerning the real-life relationship that impressed her upcoming novel “Half His Age”—and the dynamics she describes are deeply unsettling in hindsight.
Showing on Name Her Daddy, the previous Nickelodeon star revealed that her first vital relationship was with an older man she met by way of work whereas she was nonetheless a teen—and that he had a live-in girlfriend on the time.
“He had a girlfriend,” McCurdy mentioned. “He had a girlfriend that he lived with.”
RELATED: Barnes & Noble Reveals the 2026 Fiction Books Readers Will Be Speaking About All Yr
‘I Thought I Was Particular’
McCurdy defined that she was round 18 when the connection started and believed, on the time, that the age hole mirrored her maturity moderately than an influence imbalance.
“Pondering that I used to be mature, pondering that I used to be so good that this might occur,” she mentioned. “I’m particular. I can join with older folks. Youthful folks aren’t on my wavelength.”
Wanting again, she sees how that perception was inspired.
“Like that. Like f–king that,” McCurdy mentioned when requested how he justified the connection. “‘You’re so mature. I can’t discuss to anybody this fashion. I can’t consider how good you might be.’ Are you kidding me?”
RELATED: Barnes & Noble’s January E book Membership Decide Is a ‘Quiet & Devastating’ Booker Prize Finalist (Unique)
A Relationship Constructed on Secrecy and Management
The connection unfolded in secret, largely confined to temporary meetups at McCurdy’s condo. She described being new to independence, inexperienced with alcohol, and unaware of simply how intoxicated he typically was.
“He comes over actually drunk, and we make out,” she recalled. “At this level in my life, I’ve by no means had a sip of alcohol, so I don’t perceive how drunk he’s.”
As the connection progressed, McCurdy mentioned she turned emotionally exhausted by the imbalance.
“It was exhausting, and I couldn’t do it anymore,” she mentioned, describing the restricted home windows of time he allowed her and the fixed feeling of being at his disposal.
Solely when she tried to stroll away, McCurdy mentioned, did he promise to go away his girlfriend.
RELATED: Barnes & Noble Brings Again Fan-Favourite Signed Editions Deal
Intercourse, Energy, and Lingering Anger
McCurdy additionally mirrored on how intercourse functioned inside the relationship—and the way deeply it affected her sense of self-worth as a result of she was a virgin once they met and he satisfied her to attempt issues like oral intercourse and finally intercourse.
“He is fully drunk once more … and he asks me for a blow job, which I do not know what that’s as a result of I used to be raised Mormon and since I used to be homeschooled … and that was my entry level into, , an actual type of sexual exercise,” she mentioned, including, “I ultimately did have intercourse with him.”
“However having intercourse with him was, there was this, the one means I can describe it’s that there was an addictive element the place it was, that is the factor that I am chasing, that is the factor that my nervous system is form of hijacked in ready for. After which when it occurs afterward, there’s the crash. After which it simply type of ramps up once more in anticipation for the following sexual encounter … no matter it was that I used to be complicated as a authentic connection. However then intercourse all the time, I imply, it may taper off. It should fade.”
RELATED: Barnes & Noble’s Kids’s E book of the Yr for 2025 Comes With a First-Ever Twist
She later realized that the depth she had confused for connection masked deeper incompatibility.
“When that may occur, I’d go, ‘Oh, I don’t actually know if I like what I’m left with right here. I don’t wish to be doing this anymore.’”
Writing Her Strategy to Closure
McCurdy mentioned she didn’t initially understand how a lot unresolved anger she nonetheless carried concerning the relationship till she started writing Half His Age.
“I assumed I used to be accomplished. I assumed I used to be good,” she mentioned. “After which I’m scripting this ebook… and it was, ‘Oh, as a result of I’ve a lot anger left about this factor.’”
She described fiction as her path to understanding and closure—each for herself and for readers who might acknowledge comparable dynamics in their very own lives.
“Writing is my strategy to closure for previous experiences,” she mentioned, “and my means for reference to different people who find themselves type of in search of an analogous closure.”
🎬 SIGN UP for Parade’s Day by day e-newsletter to get the newest popular culture information & superstar interviews delivered proper to your inbox 🎬
