Jennette McCurdy Remembers Cheering Her Mom on as She Chased Her Dad With a Kitchen Knife on ‘The View’

Jennette McCurdy is continuing to make her daytime television rounds to promote her book, I’m Glad My Mom Died, this time popping in for a visit with the ladies on The View. The former actress, whose book detailed the many ways in which her mother abused her as a child, opened up about what it was like living under those conditions.

Co-host Ana Navarro beckoned the question after pointing out that McCurdy grew up with three older brothers, her parents, and her grandparents “all living under one roof in one house,” something the former iCarly star said was only 1,200 square feet.

“Your mom was a hoarder,” Navarro said. “You and your brothers were sleeping on mats in the living room. At the same time you were doing everything you could to please your mom who had such intense mood swings that you lived in fear of being the victim of her wrath.”

According to McCurdy, she didn’t realize how bad things were until she was much older.

“I think the thing about being a kid in a traumatic environment is that you don’t realize that you’re in a traumatic environment,” she said. “To me, that’s where the humor of the book came from is that point of view, the naïveté of a child.”

She continued, “You know, of course my mom’s chasing my dad with a kitchen knife, but I’m like ‘Go, mom!’ You know, cheering her on. To me, it’s funny that there’s that unawareness of being a kid.”

Although, the author shared that it wasn’t an immediate discovery as she was an adult either, telling the panel that she quit therapy the first time she went after her therapist suggested that she was abused.

“I couldn’t tolerate the notion that my mom was abusive because that would mean bringing her down off that pedestal and reframing my whole life,” she explained. “My whole existence was sort of revolved around this idea that my mom knows best and what my mom wants for me is better than what I want for me and I’m nothing without her.”

McCurdy added, “To try and unpack that was something that I wasn’t willing to do initially and it took me a while to be able to say, ‘You know what? I’m gonna try therapy again, I’m gonna face that she was abusive, I’m gonna deal with anything that entails.'”

The View airs weekdays at 11/10c on ABC.