Drew Barrymore Shares Regret Over 'Chaste' “Playboy ”Photos at Age 19: 'Never Knew There Would Be an Internet'

"I thought it would be a magazine that was unlikely to resurface because it was paper," the actress said of her 1995 'Playboy' cover

Drew Barrymore is looking back on her Playboy cover with a new perspective, nearly 30 years later.

As part of a lengthy and "very vulnerable" message on Instagram that she titled "PHONE HOME" (a nod to her 1982 breakout movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial), the actress, 49, recalled posing for the magazine shortly before her 20th birthday, for its January 1995 issue.

Giving context, Barrymore wrote in the post she shared on Friday, Aug. 30, "I was around plenty of hedonistic scenarios at parties and even in my own home where the viewing was of highly sensitive natures and caused me tremendous shame."

"We, as kids, are not meant to see these images," she continued. "And, yes, I was even a big exhibitionist when I was young due to these environments I was in. I thought of it as art, and I still do not judge it."

"But when I did a chaste artistic moment in Playboy in my early 20s, I thought it would be a magazine that was unlikely to resurface because it was paper," Barrymore added. "I never knew there would be an internet. I didn't know so many things."

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The Drew Barrymore Show host went on to recall how she "was emancipated at 14 years old and moved into my first apartment," and as a result, felt like she "started my life over on my own terms."

"But in a consistent message to myself, I found that there was no one to take care of me," she wrote. "My own mother was lambasted for allowing me to get so out of control. I have so much empathy for her now, because I am a mother. And none of us is perfect."

Barrymore said she and her mom "chose to invite in a world of privilege with the work I was doing," calling her breakout in E.T. "a powerful thing to be brought into the world" with.

"Since then, I was lucky enough to start engaging with people. I have never stopped," said the Wildflower author. "I marvel at how kind people have been to me in my life. And I want to give that goodness right back in reciprocity. We have all grown up together, and we are still growing."

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Before diving into specifics of why she isn't ready for her daughters — Olive, 12, and Frankie, 10 — to have smartphones yet, Barrymore cited "texts [that] can get so toxic," questioning how kids can be expected to be okay in these scenarios while reflecting on her own childhood.

"I messed up in public when I was 13, and people were shocked," she wrote. "I was on the cover of the National Enquirer and every other magazine as a washed-up tragedy. And I thought that would be my narrative forever. I wanted to disappear from the planet and never show my face again."

But instead, "I put one foot in front of the other and put my life back on track, only to make more mistakes along the way, but that is life," the Wedding Singer actress continued. "We make mistakes. And people have been so kind to me. Forgiven me. And cheered me on as I grew up."

"So yeah, it is also my karma and life's work to cheer people on right back!" Barrymore added. "We all fall and rise. Over and over. Life's roller coaster. And what a beautiful ride it is."

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