These days, Miranda Cosgrove is reigniting her acting career with the reboot of iCarly, and fans are already thrilled. But years ago, when she was mid-‘iCarly,’ Miranda was actually angling to segue into singing.
The then 17-year-old iCarly star told Paper Magazine in 2011, that while she appreciates the Nickolodeon sitcom’s success she finds singing to be her most satisfying creative outlet. “Making iCarly is great, but I’ve just been doing it for such a long time,” Cosgrove said.
She added: “I love music, and it was something I wanted to do but never thought I’d be able to. Then I got to do the theme song for iCarly and it did pretty well, and that opened a lot of doors, It all kind of just fell into place.”
While fans are thrilled that Miranda is back for the grown-up version of their favorite childhood show, they still want to know — why did she stop singing?
Miranda’s music career never really took off
Miranda Cosgrove began making music in 2008 during her stint on iCarly, singing the show’s introductory theme song, “Leave It All To Me,” which featured her former co-star Drake Bell. The tune became a hit song, reaching number 100 on the Billboard charts.
Following the success of the theme song, the iCarly soundtrack got released in 2008, with Cosgrove singing multiple songs. The album featured other songs and musicians, including Sean Kingston and even her co-star Drake Bell. Following the iCarly album, Cosgrove broke into the industry as a solo artist in 2009 with her debut EP “About You Now.” Cosgrove then continued her singing career with her debut album “Sparks Fly” in 2010. The album contained the hit lead single “Kissin U” and peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 charts that year. The success of her debut led Cosgrove to release her second, and subsequently final, EP “High Maintenance.”
While Cosgrove enjoyed a few light hits, her music career failed to reach the same explosive level as her Disney Channel counterparts Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, and Selena Gomez.
A bus crash ended her national tour
In August 2011, Miranda was on her way to making her musical dreams come true — literally. She was on the road, on a tour bus, for her ‘Dancing Crazy’ tour when her tour bus crashed.
As sources later reported, the tour bus came up on an overturned semi on the road, and the bus driver hit it head-on. Though the bus driver sustained the worst injuries, Miranda, who had been sleeping on a couch near the front of the bus, injured her foot.
Miranda was forced to cancel 25 concerts, which would reportedly have banked her almost $400,000, and she and her mom (whose injuries were primarily bruises and being ‘banged up’) went home.
She was dumped by Sony Music
Miranda claimed the bus crash ruined her career and said that Sony Music axed her from their books following the accident, and she lost out on $560K in future shows.
She also stated that she lost her $400K Neutrogena skincare contract because of her injuries.
Overall, the then 21-year-old singer-and-actress’ team said she lost as much as $2.5 million.
Cosgrove was confined to a wheelchair for months recovering from her foot injury, and that could explain her change of heart; timing can be everything in Hollywood. Even though Miranda made millions from iCarly, she lost the opportunity to achieve the same with her music.
