A few weeks back in Los Angeles, over 800 fans of Jennette McCurdy (myself included) crammed into the Wilshire Ebell Theater to hear the author discuss her debut novel, Half His Age. However, the moment that sent the room into a state of oh-this-is-going-somewhere-everyone-shut-the-hell-up, ensued when McCurdy delivered an impassioned and brutal critique of the production process behind the TV adaptation of her 2022 memoir, I’m Glad My Mum Died, leaving the audience of Half His Age decisively twice as engaged.
“I wouldn’t clap yet,” the 33-year-old told Sam Sanders of KCRW with an air of both humility and trepidation.
During their hour-long conversation on stage, the journalist had invited McCurdy to reflect on her literary success. In doing so, he’d made specific mention of ‘Glad My Mum Died’s adaptation as a symbol of her recent triumphs.
Until this point, there had been clues that McCurdy wasn’t entirely appeased with the show’s progression, on which she serves as showrunner, writer, and executive producer alongside Ari Katcher. When interviewed by Alexandra Cooper on the Call Her Daddy podcast in January, McCurdy described the process as both “interesting” and “complicated” per US Magazine. But on this night, she took no prisoners, voicing her creative dissatisfaction.
“It hasn’t been a good process,” she confessed. Sanders, who’d provided fertile ground for McCurdy to share her thoughts throughout the discussion, nodded understandingly.
Jennette McCurdy celebrating her memoir. (Credit: Instagram)
Then, what began as cursory, evaluative entrées on the series’ winding path to the screen quickly became a main course in critique, as McCurdy implied the project might not even get off the ground.
“It’s Hollywood, it might not happen … That’s what I’m talking about in therapy,” she admitted to Sanders with a sort of darkly comical transparency, normalised in the era of increased mental health awareness.
This particular moment, however, was met by the crowd with immense empathy. The prevailing sense in the room was one of wanting McCurdy to produce the TV series, but not at a creative and emotional cost.
Apple TV+ announced the 10-episode series in July of 2025 in what appeared to be a slam-dunk manoeuvre. The source material had topped bestseller lists across the globe and sold no less than three million copies.
However, in August, director Jason Reitman (Juno, Ghostbusters: Afterlife) abruptly left the project. Multiple outlets reported that the falling out was over creative differences relating to tone. Reitman had supposedly lobbied for one more comical than McCurdy thought appropriate.
Apple TV+, best known for hit original shows Pluribus, Severance, and Ted Lasso, appeared encumbered by the rare task of producing a show with more than two words in its title.
Despite this, the news from I’m Glad My Mum Died HQ hasn’t been all negative. The series is set to star and be executive-produced by Hollywood legend and professional credibility stabiliser Jennifer Aniston.
According to the Friends star, she and McCurdy had “very similar mums”, per People.
Jennifer Aniston is set to play McCurdy’s mother in the series. (Credit: Getty)
“She was a model and she was all about presentation and what she looked like and what I looked like. I did not come out the model child she’d hoped for,” Aniston told The Sunday Telegraph in 2018.
Back on Call Her Daddy, McCurdy publicly gushed over Aniston’s hiring.
“She relates to the material a lot,” McCurdy told Cooper. “It’s kind of the only way to do this project is by doing it with people who relate deeply to the material. Otherwise, it’s a moot point.”
“For something that comes from this personal of a place, other people have to relate to that deeply. Or it just gets watered down.”
Judging by her remarks at the Wilshire Ebell Theater, McCurdy appeared to suggest the project wasn’t merely watered down, but had already spent a Winter sitting at the foot of Niagara Falls.
The author went on to lambast the broader TV industry, characterising it to the enthralled Wilshire Ebell Theater as “guys on yachts making decisions based on last quarter’s earnings”. It was a line met with laughter and rapturous applause, typical of a night where Sanders and McCurdy expertly navigate serious topics with good humour.
At the tail end of an evening where she’d emphasised the importance of standing by your beliefs, McCurdy noted, “I don’t have much respect for Hollywood”.
“I wish people [in Hollywood] would own their opinions more.”
It was the sort of honest, humanising, stick-it-to-the-man-type sentiment we all wished we could so deftly externalise — an opinion she needn’t have drilled home to her knowing fans, but one we gleefully celebrated her sharing.
McCurdy’s debut novel, Half His Age, is now available in bookstores and online.
Apple TV+ was contacted for comment.