Photo credit: Featureflash Photo Agency / Shutterstock.com

Jennette McCurdy was one of the biggest Nickelodeon stars of her time, starring alongside Miranda Cosgrove in iCarly and then alongside Ariana Grande in the spin-off, Sam & Cat.

She seemed to have it all at the time, but behind the scenes, the actress was struggling with disordered eating, which included anorexia, binge-eating, and bulimia.

Thankfully, disordered eating is now a thing of her past, which is why she has decided to finally open up about it…

“I was a mess for a long time,” the actress told People. “But I no longer think about food in an obsessive way. And I once didn’t believe that was ever possible.”

The actress, now 29, said that her mom Debbie restricted her eating when she was just 11 years old, before adding that as well as controlling her food, she abused her both physically and mentally…

“My mom said she could teach me calorie counting and we could be a team, but that I had to keep it secret,” the actress continued.

“I thought it was an opportunity for my mom and me to be closer.”

Jennette McCurdy reveals all about the abuse she faced from her mom – and so much more – in her upcoming memoir. She recalled that she was living on just 1,000 calories a day and “sometimes I’d eat even less because I wanted my mom to be proud.”

When she was cast as Sam Puckett on iCarly, she officially had anorexia, which was a stark contrast to her character on the show…

“Ironically, my character’s trademark is that she loves food,” she added.

“I’d have scenes where I was supposed to be eating and they’d have a spit bucket. But I’d have terror that there would still be calories left in my body.”

Despite the spit bucket, Jennette said that she doesn’t think the cast and crew realized the severity of her eating disorder…

“I don’t think I even realized how intense it was, but I’m sure everybody just attributed [the weight loss] to normal body fluctuations.”

Jennette then went on to say that her anorexia transformed to binge-eating and bulimia after her mother died in 2013 – as it was one of the ways she coped with the tragic loss…

“Bulimia took over my life very quickly,” she confessed. “I was throwing up up to 10 times a day and I was completely unable to stop.

“But the cycle of bulimia kept me numb. It was a full-time job, so there was no space to deal with my issues or mourn my mom.

“I passed out in my friend [iCarly co-star Miranda Cosgrove]’s bathroom. I had been purging and I passed out on the cold marble floor. That terrifies me because I could have died, choking on my own vomit.”

The actress said that she was able to control her eating disorders and come to terms with her mother’s death after two years of intensive Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and can now confidently say that she has “recovered”…

“Food was my coping mechanism. I haven’t binged or purged or restricted in years,” she concluded.

“And I feel very deeply and very strongly about saying I’ve finally recovered.”

We’re so grateful that she has been so open with her fans about her past struggles. She is one of the original influencers, and we are confident that her candid comments will help many people going through the same thing.