McCurdy said her ex, who she met at work, was in his 30s when she was 18.

Jennette McCurdy recalls ‘creepy’ relationship she had with older man as a teen: ‘It was just exhausting’

McCurdy said her ex, who she met at work, was in his 30s when she was 18.

By Shania Russell

Shania Russell

Shania Russell is a news writer at *, *with five years of experience. Her work has previously appeared in SlashFilm and Paste Magazine.

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January 7, 2026 6:57 p.m. ET

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Jennette McCurdy in New York in October 2023. Credit:

Noam Galai/Getty

Former Nickelodeon star Jennette McCurdy is pulling the curtain back on another dark aspect of her teenage years: the "exhausting" relationship that she once had with a much older man.

The *iCarly* alum, who is now 33, described the relationship as "creepy" during an in-depth conversation with Alex Cooper on the* Call Her Daddy* podcast. Though she never named the man, McCurdy noted that they met at work during her time on the children's network.

"I was most likely 18," McCurdy recalled. "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."

McCurdy has been looking back on the relationship in anticipation of her upcoming debut novel, *Half His Age*, a dark comedy about a teenage girl who begins a relationship with a much older man. In McCurdy's case, her former boyfriend was in his 30s when they started seeing each other.

Jennette McCurdy, Nathan Kress, and Miranda Cosgrove on 'iCarly'.

Lisa Rose / Nickelodeon / Courtesy Everett

"It was just exhausting," the actress said. "I remember he came over drunk one night to my apartment. At this point, I’ve moved out of my mom’s — red flags all over — I've been living away from my mom for maybe two months, and I'm like, 'Great, okay, a relationship. That'll be great.' He comes over, and he has beer stains on his shirt, and he's bumbling around."

She continued, "At this point in my life, I've never had a sip of alcohol, so I don't understand how drunk he is. He was drunk off his ass, but I didn't know. Did you drink one drink, and that's how drunk you are? How drunk is one drink? How drunk is 10 drinks? I had no frame of reference. So he comes over really drunk, and we make out, and it's a lot of dry humping. And it's that for months."

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McCurdy, who was homeschooled and raised Mormon, then divulged another troubling aspect of the relationship: though she wanted to wait until marriage to have sex, she felt pressured to be intimate with him before she was ready. The *Between* actress explained that her then-boyfriend was initially seeing someone else when they got together, but eventually broke up with his partner to be with her. Around the same time, her mother was hospitalized for a seizure.

"She got out of the hospital and was gonna come stay with me at my apartment. But he was gonna come stay with me at my apartment because he was breaking up with his f---ing girlfriend," she recalled. "So I can't have my dying mother and my boyfriend she doesn't know about and would never approve of at my apartment at the same time. Right? We have a dilemma on our hands."

She continued, "And he's saying, 'I shouldn't have broken up with her. It was the worst mistake of my life.' He uses the 'You can’t meet my needs' thing a lot."

Jennette McCurdy in New York City in 2022.

Taylor Hill/WireImage

McCurdy ultimately decided to book a hotel room where the couple could meet instead. Emphasizing how young she was, the Nickelodeon alum said she purposely booked a room close to Universal Studios because at the time, that was "my idea of a good hotel. I was like, like 'Maybe we can go on the Hogwarts ride!'"

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Instead, the *Sam & Cat *star said her partner showed up "completely drunk again" and, once in the hotel room, insisted that they have oral sex.

"I don't know what that is, because I was raised Mormon and because I was homeschooled," McCurdy recalled. "I didn't f---ing know. He explains to me what it is, and I'm like, 'Well, that sounds kinda weird, I'm nervous to do this.' He's like, 'I'll guide you through it, I'll guide you through it.'"

Noting that it ended up being her "entry point into a real form of sexual activity," McCurdy added, "Now it's funny, but at the time, it was really uncomfortable, and it was difficult to kind of regroup."

McCurdy added that the dynamic was all the more complicated because it was such an early relationship, leaving her without much to compare it to.

"I hadn't really felt a deep connection with anybody my age at that point yet," she admitted, adding that dating someone older made her feel "special" and "mature," an idea that her boyfriend ultimately reinforced. "'You're so mature. I can't talk to anyone this way. I can't believe how smart you are.' Like, you kidding me? I was such an idiot. I'm so embarrassed. Also, how humiliating that he thought that was smart."

Watch McCurdy's full conversation with Cooper above.

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