Drew Barrymore Explains Why She Befriended Britney Spears After Conservatorship Drama
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After nearly two years of 'secret exchanges,' Barrymore is opening up about her bond with the Princess of Pop.
Drew Barrymore and Britney Spears may not have been friends when the two stars simultaneously rose to fame in the early 2000s, but things have changed, according to the actress.
On Monday, Barrymore appeared on The Tonight Show and told Jimmy Fallon that the two originally connected sometime in early 2021. Given the 47-year-old's statements, we can only speculate the two became acquainted after the Feb. 2021 release of the New York Times TV documentary: Framing Britney Spears.
But in the time since, not only was Spears released from her conservatorship, the two stars have also cultivated "a deep connection"–so much so that Barrymore even attended the 40-year-old "Hold Me Closer" singer's wedding to Sam Asghari.
"I made friends with Britney about a year and a half ago and we sort of had some secret exchanges," Barrymore revealed. "I know that sounds nefarious, [but] it was exactly the opposite. It was very connective and honest and we've both been through a lot of things, we have some parallels that are unique in their circumstances," she said.
Barrymore continued: "But, also I think that the things we go through in life, although these circumstances may seem so next-level, the feelings of growing up, struggling, all the stuff that we've both gone through, is something that I felt connected to her," the actress explained.
Barrymore later added: "I'm not a real reach-out kind of person–I'm not slick–it's just, the humanity in what she was going through, trying to get her freedom back, was something I felt compelled to reach out and we found a deep connection there."
While the actress didn't battle a 13-year-long conservatorship like her pop star BFF, she knows all to well what it's like to grow up around dysfunctional relatives.
Her father, John Barrymore Jr., split from her mother soon after Barrymore was born and died in 2004 after a lifelong battle with addiction.
And although Barrymore recently said that their relationship is "good now," when she was still a child, her mother, Jaid Barrymore, would take Barrymore to Studio 54 and other hedonistic, all-night hangouts; Barrymore sued her parents to emancipate herself legally from any relationship with them.
The actress also previously told Parade that her upbringing and early years were a source of inspiration for her work.
"I used to pull a lot emotionally from all the stuff with my family," she said referencing the tumultuous and scandalous mother-daughter relationships in her hit flicks Whip It and Grey Gardens. "I won't deny that the baggage was there at one point."
You can watch her talk about her new friendship with Britney Spears in the embedded video above.
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