Drew Barrymore Shares Difficult Realization About Estranged Mother
Drew Barrymore was opening up about her tumultuous relationship with her estranged mother, Jaid Barrymore, when she had an uncomfortable realization.
While speaking with New York Magazine for a poignant profile published on Monday as part of the outlet's annual TV issue, the media personality had an "aha moment" regarding the healing process for those dealing with complicated and abusive relationships with their parents.
Her epiphany? Processing the difficult relationship she has had with her mother has only been made worse by the fact that her mother is still alive.
As her conversation with the outlet took a turn to discuss Drew Barrymore Show episodes that feature stars who have also been transparent about struggling with similar parental relationships, like Jennette McCurdy and Brooke Shields, Barrymore suggested that part of the grief she's had to endure is related to the fact that on some level she's unconsciously "protecting" her mother's image.
Barrymore, 48, explained how she related to the former Nickelodeon star's comments about how she couldn't express her "true emotional reality" while her mom was alive because she was more concerned with preserving her mother's image. "I’ve never put it in those terms in my head," Barrymore admitted.
"All their moms are gone, and my mom’s not," she continued, "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 f–king grow in spite of her being on this planet."
While honoring the validity of her emotions, an hour later, the Santa Clarita Diet star revealed that sharing the confession wasn't pleasant. "I dared to say it, and I didn’t feel good," she said. "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."
But Barrymore doesn't wish her mother was dead, either. She later clarified her statements in a video shared to her Instagram grid, "I have never said that I wish my mother was dead."
She continued, "I have been vulnerable and tried to figure out a very difficult, painful relationship while admitting it is difficult to do while a parent is alive."
That said, the former child star has been outspoken about her adolescence for some time now, previously sharing stories of how Jaid would take her to Hollywood parties and Studio 54 as a child. By the time she was 12, Drew had already been to rehab for drugs and alcohol, and at 13, she was placed in a psychiatric ward in California by her mother. By age 14, Drew was emancipated from her parents.
"I think she [Jaid] created a monster, and she didn’t know what to do with the monster," she told Howard Stern in a 2021 interview.
Eventually, Barrymore forgave her father, John Drew Barrymore, before he passed away in 2004, even paying for his hospice care. Though her relationship with her mother is more complicated, she isn't one to use the past as means for retaliation.
"I choose very consciously not to see my life as things that have been done to me," she said in Monday's interview. "I want to see it as the things I did and chose to do. I’m not attracted to people who lay blame on others. I don’t find it sexy."
At the end of 2022, the Flower Beauty Cosmetics founder also told reporters that she "will always support her [mom]."
"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," she explained in a December interview. "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.'"
Parade has reached out to reps for Barrymore but has not heard back.
