Yahoo Lifestyle Drew Barrymore was 'jealous' of kids who called parents at school because she 'could never get a hold' of hers
"What's that like?"
The Drew Barrymore Show
Drew BarrymoreDrew Barrymore is looking back at her early years and how “jealous” she felt toward other kids who had a more traditional upbringing.
During Friday’s episode of her talk show, Barrymore sat down with musician Frank Zappa’s daughter Moon to reflect on their unique childhoods and how they both longed for the little things that came from a quintessential family dynamic, like having soup when you’re sick. Barrymore — who was legally emancipated from her parents at age 14 — has spoken openly about how her dad, John Drew Barrymore, wasn’t around when she was a child and how her mom, Jaid Barrymore, often struggled to put proper boundaries in place for her.
“I remember all the kids at school would go into the office to call their parents when they were sick and I could never get a hold of anybody," Barrymore said. "And I was so jealous of those kids who would call and be like, 'Mom, Dad, come pick me up!’ I just would sit there and be like, 'What's that like?’”
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The Drew Barrymore Show
Barrymore and Moon ZappaZappa, who explores her own complex relationship with her parents in her novel Earth to Moon, could relate. “I can’t watch award shows when they say thank you to their family or their spouse,” she replied. “I literally… I’ll flip this table right now.”
It’s also what made Barrymore want to become a parent who did provide structure for her two daughters, Frankie and Olive. However, she noted that it wasn’t always an easy process.
“I love my mom. I’m so grateful to her because if she hadn’t allowed me to go and explore all these areas, then I wouldn’t have figured out who I was,” Barrymore said. “But, when it came to me being a parent, and people would come at with what I felt defensively was kind of righteousness — like as if there was a right way [to be a parent] — they would always talk about boundaries.”
Something that Barrymore wasn't exactly raised with, so when things didn't go as planned, she took it extra hard. “Everything to me was very devastating," she said, "and took me a long time to recover from if it wasn’t in the traditional family dynamic that I swore I would do for my family because I did not grow up that way.”
Barrymore has been candid over the years about the lack of structure in her life as a child, noting she was allowed to have her 10th birthday at a bar and attended tons of house parties despite being very young. In the documentary Child Star, she told Demi Lovato that she was first introduced to weed through her mom's friend at age 10.
"Having a 10 year old daughter now, I just, it's unfathomable," Barrymore said at the time. "But that's just how I grew up."
Even prior to her emancipation, Barrymore lived with several families outside of her own including the Ward family, who raised her while filming Firestarter and Cat's Eye, and the Zappas for a temporary stint. She even once asked Steven Spielberg if he would be her dad while they were shooting E.T., though he turned down the title and ultimately agreed to be her godfather instead.
"She was staying up way past her bedtime, going to places she should have only been hearing about, and living a life at a very tender age that I think robbed her of her childhood," Spielberg said in a 2023 Vulture profile. "Yet I felt very helpless because I wasn't her dad. I could only kind of be a consigliere to her."
The Drew Barrymore Show airs weekdays on CBS.
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