Having been in the public eye for as long as she can remember Drew Barrymore has dealt with tabloid journalism and paparazzi for longer than many of us can even conceive. Recently one such tabloid published something that the actress/television host cannot let slide, and she has released a video saying she will not stand for it.
Barrymore did not have a conventional childhood, having starred in what was then the biggest blockbuster of all time, E.T. aged only seven years old. By the age of 13 she was already in rehab for drug abuse, placed in and out of there by her mother and manager Jaid Barrymore. At the age of 14, Barrymore had herself legally emancipated and has had a strained relationship with her mother ever since.
This came to a head in a recent New York Magazine interview the actress did, where she opened up about how she feels currently about her relationship with her mother, whom she still financially supports. The interview discussed a conversation Barrymore had had with another former child actor who had a troubled relationship with their mother, Jennette McCurdy, who wrote the memoir controversially titled I’m Glad My Mother Died. This conversation, among others, the actress has had with people in similar positions to herself, has allowed Barrymore to open up more about her own relationship problems.
Within that conversation with McCurdy, who has been very vocal about the abuse she suffered since her mother passed, Barrymore asked “Do I have to wait to tell all my truths? I don’t know if I can do it because certain people are alive.” During her own interview with New York Magazine, she said:
“All their moms are gone, and my mom’s not, and I’m like, ‘Well, I don’t have that luxury’. But I cannot wait. I don’t want to live in a state where I wish someone to be gone sooner than they’re meant to be so I can grow. I actually want her to be happy and thrive and be healthy. But I have to fucking grow in spite of her being on this planet.”
The interview goes on to state that she quickly regretting her phrasing of this point, saying “I dared to say it, and I didn’t feel good,” adding “I do care. I’ll never not care. I don’t know if I’ve ever known how to fully guard, close off, not feel, build the wall up.”
This little snippet though, one of someone expressing something very vulnerable and personal, was then picked up by a tabloid that ran with the headline, “Drew Barrymore admits she wishes her mother Jaid was dead: ‘I cannot wait’.” Well there is a sensational click-worthy headline if ever we saw one. Barrymore, however, is of course rightly outraged at how her words have been twisted. The actress posted a response to this headline three hours ago on her Instagram.
The actress started off the message with:
“To all you tabloids out there, you have been f***ing with my life since I was 13 years old. I have never said I wish my mother was dead. How dare you put those words in my mouth. I have been vulnerable and tried to figure out a very difficult, painful relationship while admitting it is difficult to do while the parent is alive and for those of us who have to figure that out in real time cannot wait, as in they cannot wait for the time, not that the parent is dead. Don’t twist my words around or ever say that I wish my mother was dead. I have never said that, I never would.”
Barrymore has every right to be angry about how that conversation was represented, especially about something as sore and personal as the one she has been living with since she was a child and that has been covered extensively by media. Despite her complex relationship, the actress has said that she could never fully turn her back on her mother, telling People in December of 2022:
“I will always support her, I can’t turn my back on the person who gave me my life. I can’t do it. It would hurt me so much. I would find it so cruel. But there are times where I’ve realized that our chemistry and behavior will drum up a feeling in me where I have to say, ‘Okay, I need a break again.'”
Whatever Barrymore still has to figure out with her mother, it is for her to do in the way she feels best for herself and in her own time.
