Miranda Cosgrove Felt ‘Pressure’ As a Child Star on ‘iCarly’

It’s not easy being a teen. Miranda Cosgrove opened up about her time in front of the camera on Nickelodeon’s iCarly — and she admitted it wasn’t always a walk in the park.

“For sure there was pressure,” Cosgrove, 29, revealed during the Monday, September 5, episode of the “Reign With Josh Smith” podcast. “Even when you’re not on TV or acting or anything, just growing up, there’s a lot of pressure to try to figure so many things out.”

The California native, who was 14 when the teen comedy premiered, starred as the show’s titular character Carly Shay from September 2007 to November 2012 — the entirety of the show’s six-season run.

The sitcom, which was created by Dan Schneider, followed Carly as she created and hosted her own web show with the help of her best friends Sam (Jennette McCurdy) and Freddie (Nathan Kress) from the apartment she shares with her brother Spencer Shay (Jerry Trainor). As the show-within-a-show became a phenomenon, the characters were tasked with balancing their normal lives with the outlandish situations and harsh realities of their newfound fame — something Cosgrove related to offscreen as well.

“When I was younger, I would go through and kind of ignore all the nice comments and look for the one mean one,” she explained of her experience on social media as a young celebrity. “I would be going through for awhile and be like, ‘Oh, found it!’”

Now, however, the School of Rock star, who returned for Paramount+’s reboot of the series in 2021, looks back at her experience on the show with a new set of eyes.

“I feel like when I was younger, I didn’t think about it as much as I do now,” she said. “Looking back, I think, ‘That seems like it would’ve been really hard.’ But when I was doing it, I wasn’t really thinking about it as much. I was more just kind of living my life.”

The Drake and Josh alum also shared how her early stardom didn’t allow her to experience typical teenage rights of passage until much later in life.

“When I was really young, I would go in to write songs and the different people I was co-writing with would be like, ‘What’s the craziest thing that happened with a guy you were dating recently?’” the “Kissin U” singer revealed. “And I’d be thinking, ‘I don’t know,’ I didn’t really have any crazy stories because I wasn’t really having a real high school or middle school experience.”

Enrolling in college, however, helped the Despicable Me 2 voice actress find more normalcy. “My whole life changed, but it was awesome. I made a lot of friends and I got to just take classes that I was interested in. I tried photography and I ended up majoring in psychology and it was just a really solid, good experience,” she shared.

Cosgrove’s comments come just one month after former costar McCurdy, 30, released her debut memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died, which details her difficult experiences as a child star in the entertainment industry.

“I think seeing yourself is particularly difficult with growing up in the public eye, because you’re so public-facing and seen as one thing,” the Sam & Cat actress wrote. “That makes the reality of you so much more unseen and invalidated and unacknowledged. But now, because I see myself, I can accept being seen by others.”

According to the Between alum, her experience on iCarly had an endless amount of ups and downs, but preparing for life after the show ended was more difficult than she had expected.

“For me, it’s not that iCarly’s ending. It’s not that today is our last day ever taping of iCarly. That I’m fine with, even excited about, definitely ready for, McCurdy detailed in the book. “Even though I’m wary of starting my spinoff, I’m glad to at least be saying goodbye to this project that makes me feel like I’m living every day in the Groundhog Day movie, doing the same thing over and over again.”

McCurdy went on to reprise the role of Sam on Sam & Cat, a crossover series between iCarly and Victorious. The short-lived series costarred Ariana Grande, whom the Robot Chicken alum claimed the network treated differently as the “Thank U, Next” singer, 29, became more and more famous.

“Every time something exciting happens to her, I feel like she robbed me of having that experience myself. And every time someone calls me a good sport, all I feel is how much I don’t want to be one,” she revealed.