Jennette McCurdy says working on her latest book helped her find the “closure” she needed after being involved with a much older man during her teenage years.
The former iCarly and Sam & Cat star has been making the rounds to promote her second book, Half His Age, and stopped by the Wednesday (Jan. 21) episode of TODAY with Jenna and Sheinelle, where she opened up about what inspired her to write it.
The release follows her 2022 memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died.
Around the two-minute mark of the interview, McCurdy shared that her writing “comes from a deeply emotional place” and described the new book as very “personal.”
“For me, writing is an opportunity to find closure in areas where maybe there isn’t so much closure,” McCurdy explained. “A way to process feelings maybe I haven’t processed.”
Earlier this month, McCurdy also appeared on the Call Her Daddy podcast, where she revealed that she became involved with a middle-aged man when she was about 17 years old.
She described the relationship as “addictive” and said her nervous system felt “hijacked” during that period.
Released on Jan. 20, Half His Age follows a high school student named Waldo who becomes romantically involved with her married creative writing teacher, Mr. Korgy. The characters are loosely inspired by McCurdy and the older man she dated as a teenager, who was also seeing another woman at the time.
“I see this as a story less focused on the taboo itself and more on the psychological examination of the young woman who’s experiencing it, and all the contributing factors that allowed her to fall into this relationship in the first place,” McCurdy recently told The New York Times.
