Drew Barrymore meets fan who honored late fiancé by getting “Never Been Kissed ”quote engraved on memorial bench

Drew Barrymore got emotional while meeting a fan with a meaningful connection to her 1999 romcom, Never Been Kissed.

During taping for her Monday morning talk show, Barrymore pulled fan Jack Ciapciak out of the audience for a moving conversation.

"So Jack recently lost his partner, his fiancé actually," she told the crowd for context. "And you got a park bench?"

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"I did, yeah. It's where I proposed to him," Ciapciak explained. "After he passed way, I needed to come up with a quote to put on the bench. His favorite movie was Never Been Kissed, and his favorite line from the movie was, 'Find out who you are, and try not to be afraid of it.'"

Ciapciak said his late partner, Jack Lorentzen, often said that "once he came out and started living his authentic life, everything fell into place."

His voice cracking with emotion, he continued, "I thought that that's a message that he'd want people to know and see when they saw his name and walked by the bench."

Ciapciak, a co-producer and writer on Blue Bloods, has been active on social media since the death of his fiancé in 2022, speaking openly about the love that the couple shared and his journey coping with grief. Recent weeks have seen fans of his videos visit the memorial bench to pay their respects to Lorentzen.

"Now people are going, visiting the bench and sending me videos," Ciapciak told Barrymore. "And it's been incredible."

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With Barrymore's prompting, Ciapciak went on to share some further details of the couple's love story, explaining that they knew they had found something special after "night one."

He added, "It's like we knew our time together was short, because we didn't waste a moment. I had seven incredible years with him and he lived life to the fullest and he lived with intention — he always did what he wanted to do — and I'm trying to be more like that. I'm just so happy that I'm getting to share him with the world and that this is resonating with people."

Related: Drew Barrymore recalls meeting Princess Diana, giving her E.T. doll as a child: 'The honor of my life'

After thanking Barrymore, he added, "This is unbelievable."

The talk show host, who held Ciapciak's hands throughout much of the conversation, replied, "I'm so honored to be a part of your love story," adding that Ciapciak's late fiancé sounds "extraordinary" and "brave."

Barrymore's 1999 coming-of-age film sees her play baby-faced journalist Josie Geller, who poses as a high school student to research contemporary teenage culture. While infiltrating the campus and its cliques, she stumbles into a journey of self discovery — and falls for a teacher.

In an Instagram post, Ciapciak shared that he was compelled to revisit the movie after remembering that he and Lorentzen "rented it like 10 times" over the course of a single year. He added, "He'd laugh out loud every time as if the jokes were new and could recite almost every scene."

Related: Michael Vartan got, um, too excited during that Never Been Kissed scene with Drew Barrymore

He captioned the post, "Some days I cry on the bench, other days I smile. It’s my special place where I go when I need to sit and speak to him. I love you, Jack. I’ll never stop loving you."

Watch Ciapciak's emotional meeting with Barrymore above.

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