Celebrities

Does Hollywood Play Favourites?

favouritism

The dark side of Hollywood is dripping in favouritism. How do your favourite celebrities get to the top of the pyramid of fame? A ton of favours and, well, talent. Few make it to the peak and remain there. One of those is Ariana Grande, singer, actress, and all-around superstar. However, according to her former costar, Jennette McCurdy, who worked with her on the Nickelodeon show, Sam & Cat, there’s more to the story, which has to do with the studio.

In Jennette’s memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died, she talks about filming the iCarly and Victorious spin-off, Sam & Cat. What’s unique about how she wrote it, Jennette doesn’t call anyone out in a negative light. Instead, she explains it neutrally. For example, in an excerpt that was released, thanks to Variety, she spoke about how the studio would write Ariana temporarily out of the story of the show to accommodate her rising music career.

favouritism
[Credit: USA Today]

When Jennette booked two movies on Sam & Cat, she had to turn them down as the writers refused to write her out temporarily. However, they did with Ariana, hence showing favouritism. She continued and said that what drove her to despise Grande was when she [Ariana] showed up on set one day and proclaimed she had played charades with Tom Hanks.

Hollywood Culture Doesn’t Have Too Many Eras

Hollywood hasn’t changed in a couple of decades. It displays favouritism towards those who will get them a ton of money. A large portion of these people are young, good-looking, and Caucasian. Ariana fits that bill on every point. Also, she has immense talent; there’s no denying that.

As Jennette points out, Ariana appears on just about every Under 30 list under the sun, and she’s right. According to Ariana’s profile on Forbes, she was listed on an Under 30’s list in 2013. But, oddly, the link to the list goes to a 404 message, indicating it’s been removed.

What pushes Jennette’s favouritism angle forward further is that her face would be plastered on a clothing line for tween girls that are only available at Walmart. Ariana, however, would get perfume deals worth millions of dollars.

Hush Money? Yeah, Pass!

This is not the only claim Jennette has made in her book. She also claims that Nickelodeon offered her $300,000 to silence her. But, according to Exposing SMG, she did not take the money.

In Exposing SMG’s video, they discuss three things from Jennette’s book, including Ariana’s diva antic and jealousy of the songstress’s career. Also, the video points out that Sam & Cat was given to Jennette as a reward for her success on iCarly. Ariana was a newbie who hadn’t been with Nickelodeon for as long as she had. Though, the studio displayed favouritism towards Ariana.

Another instance that Jennette exposes involves the Victorious cast, always getting drunk and sleeping together. She also reveals that “The Creator”, as she calls him, constantly compared the iCarly and Victorious casts.

Jennette has every right to be annoyed. We know who “The Creator” is, but we’re not going to reference who she’s referring to, as we don’t want to risk it. The dead giveaway of who it is is the person who created both iCarly and Victorious. So we’re just going to leave it at that.

Victorious Was Kinda Notorious In Hollywood – Ariana’s Fame High

According to Exposing SMG’s video, Jennette says the Victorious cast had a bad rep. This aligns with what The Creator told her about how different the two casts were. The iCarly cast was sensible in their choices, while their counterparts were not.

Exposing SMG did a post on their site in 2020 with a load of information regarding Ariana’s past. The one before that was in roughly 2016. They say that Ariana’s big break was on Victorious, and she got her start on Broadway, as many actors did before this.

They expose a ton of stuff, including many foot fetishes in the shows that said Creator was involved in. Also, given the information provided via screenshots of old tweets, favouritism played a massive role in how things panned out with Jennette and Ariana. Again, though, iCarly was more successful than Victorious.

For some reason, Ariana was making more money from Sam & Cat than Jennette, which wasn’t good. Oh, and the Victorious cast did drugs together, according to ESMG. Also, Jennette had to sit on the sidelines while Ariana treated everyone like crap. Ariana thought she was the great thing to hit the music industry. This matches up with stories we’ve heard. Some fans have mentioned meeting her on different occasions and being nice one time and cruel the next. ESMG also references this.

The Sunrise Awkwardness

This takes us back to when Ariana appeared on the Australian morning show, Sunrise almost a decade ago, and it could not have been more awkward.

[Credit: Kate Tom – YouTube]

We remember it like it happened yesterday. There were awkward pauses in the conversation, like she didn’t know how to answer or didn’t want to answer the questions. This was at the high of her career when she was starting. It was like she didn’t want to be there. It’s just totally cringy.

Favouritism Is A Fickled Biatch

To end this post, Hollywood favours those who do things for them. We talk about this a lot regarding the couple who shan’t be named. Moreover, it’s been said that Victoria Justice, the star of Victorious, wasn’t much better than Ariana and that she was jealous of Grande’s fame.

Victorious was Victoria’s show, but Ariana was the most talked about. Yeah, we get why she would be upset. But we do NOT condone her diva antics. We’ll cover this in another article, as biatch fights are often fun to discuss.

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About Author

C.J. Hawkings has written for the now-defunct Entertainment website, Movie Pilot and the still functioning WhatCulture and ScreenRant. She prides herself as a truth seeker and will do (almost) anything for coffee or Coke No Sugar. Oh! And food!

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