Jennette McCurdy Opens Up About Dating A Much Older Man When She Was 18

Jennette McCurdy has been incredibly open about the struggles she faced as a child star, and now she’s revealing another tough relationship that she feels “embarrassed” looking back on. While promoting her upcoming novel Half His Age, McCurdy opened up about her personal connection to the book’s title. In her teenage years, she was involved with a man who was about twice her age — and now, she’s sharing how that dynamic impacted her.

McCurdy spoke about her much older ex during her Jan. 7 appearance on Call Her Daddy, saying he was in his 30s when she dated him as a teenager. “I was most likely 18,” McCurdy said. “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.”

This would have taken place around 2010, around when McCurdy’s mother’s cancer had returned. She died three years later in 2013. McCurdy recalled how difficult it was to take care of her sick mom while also maintaining her secret relationship.

“It was just exhausting,” McCurdy said. “I remember he came over drunk one night to my apartment. ... Red flags all over.” At one point, the man insisted that he start living with McCurdy, despite the fact that she was taking care of her mom at home.

“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,” McCurdy said. “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.’"

Looking back, McCurdy can now clearly see how “powerless” this man made her feel, calling him a “f*cking loser” for preying one someone so much younger. “Can you imagine now being with like a [teenager]?” the 33-year-old author said. “Creepy.”