Jennifer Aniston Says She and Jeanette McCurdy Had ‘Very Similar Moms’

Jennifer Aniston has a strong bond with I’m Glad My Mom Died costar and author Jennette McCurdy.

“We have a lot in common,” Aniston, 56, told People in an interview published on Friday, October 17. “We had very similar moms.”

Aniston recalled the moment McCurdy’s book and the adapted TV series were both brought to her attention.

“When it came across my desk as an option, an offer to play this character and work with Jennette and Sharon Horgan and LuckyChap, I was pretty much immediately intrigued and flattered and excited,” she told the outlet. “It’s going to be wonderful. It’s going to be pretty great to start shooting it.”

Of her young costar, Aniston added, “The fact that she’s the young woman that she is, having lived that life, is nothing short of remarkable.”

McCurdy, 33, whose mother Debra died in 2013, published her memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died in 2022. The book almost immediately topped the bestseller list, due in part to the author’s no holds barred peek into Jennette’s life with Debra.

“It’s something I mean sincerely,” Jennette told BuzzFeed News in August 2022 about the title of the book. “I’m genuinely glad. If she were alive, I’d still be trapped. Every important decision in my life wouldn’t have been possible.”

Apple TV+ ordered a first season of a TV adaptation of the book in July 2025. The 10-episode season will be written, executive produced and showrun by Jennette and Ari Katcher. Aniston, Sharon Horgan and Merman, LuckyChap, Jerrod Carmichael and Erica Kay serve as executive producers.

In 2022, Jennette told The Hollywood Reporter that her family members supported the title of the book and its release.

“My brothers have been so supportive, so understanding,” she told the outlet, before adding that her siblings were “not at all” thrown off by the choice. “They get the title, to put it simply. It was also a title that I knew I wanted early on.”

Jennette continued, “I wanted something that was bold and also something that I meant sincerely. I would never use a bold and attention-grabbing title if it weren’t authentic. I would never do it if it were just coming from a flippant place. That’s not my approach to humor. I knew that anybody who had experienced parental abuse would understand the title, and anybody who had a sense of humor would understand the title.”

The iCarly star added that she spent significant time in therapy before penning the memoir.

“I definitely laughed a ton while writing; I cried while writing,” she explained. “Because I’ve done so much of the work privately and for myself initially, I do think I was at a place where I was able to kind of discern what aspects of my life are legitimately entertaining and worth people reading about, and what aspects of my life are not entertaining. I think I waited the appropriate amount of time in my processing before approaching this in any sort of a creative way.”