Drew Barrymore gushes over “Facts of Life” cast during surprise reunion: 'You gave me a blueprint'

Lisa Whelchel, Nancy McKeon, and Mindy Cohn helped the actress and talk show host celebrate her birthday.

You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have… Drew Barrymore's birthday gift.

On a celebratory episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, the stars of one of Barrymore's favorite TV shows, The Facts of Life, are reuniting to wish her a happy 49th birthday. In a preview clip from Thursday's episode, Barrymore explained what the characters played by Lisa Whelchel, Nancy McKeon, and Mindy Cohn meant to her as a kid.

"Jo was a major inspiration for me for Charlie's Angels," the actress said of McKeon's character. "[She] showed that girls could be strong and tough, and you helped take a lot of intimidation away for females."

McKeon responded, "You are so dear."

Meanwhile, Whelchel's Blair helped Barrymore practice empathy. "Blair, for me, represented [that] we could be intimidated by people but we don't have to fear them, and we can still be friends with them," she explained. "Because you know how popular, beautiful people can scare you sometimes? Blair was like, 'It's not about the outside, it's about the human inside.'"

Cohn was eager to hear about how her character, Natalie, impacted Barrymore. "Drew, what did I do, what did I do, Drew?" she asked half-jokingly.

"You were a giant moral compass for me," Barrymore said. "Natalie, to me, was always the voice of reason. You had an instilled knowledge of right, wrong, good, evil, which I did not have growing up."

Elsewhere in the episode, Barrymore broke down why The Facts of Life was a seminal piece of entertainment when she was growing up. "I think for those of us who didn't grow up in a traditional mother-father or two-parent household… I saw myself with you guys because you were raising yourself, you were raising each other, and Mrs. Garrett [the late Charlotte Rae] was at the helm of that," she said. "Television [was] on heavy family and I didn't relate and I didn't identify, didn’t see myself there… What I was learning was to be a strong, independent female who could take care of themselves and value female friendship and know that there was someone there watching out for them. I wanted so badly to be with you guys, and you gave me a blueprint that made my life feel better to me in every sense of the word."

Watch Barrymore gush about the Facts of Life cast in the clip above. The full episode of The Drew Barrymore Show will air Thursday on CBS.

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