Drew Barrymore Opens Up About Strained Relationship With Mother

Actor and TV host Drew Barrymore has been vocal about her tumultuous childhood and has now admitted, in an interview with Vulture, she did not enjoy the same "luxury" as some of her friends who have already lost their parents.

"All their moms are gone, and my mom's not, and I'm like, 'Well, I don't have that luxury,' but I cannot wait," Drew said.

"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***ing grow in spite of her being on this planet."

Later in the interview, however, Barrymore expressed remorse for her previous comments. 

"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."

By the age of 12, Barrymore had been to rehab for drugs and alcohol. A year later her mother put her in a psychiatric ward in California.

"I think she created a monster, and she didn't know what to do with the monster," she said in 2021 during an appearance on  SiriusXM's "The Howard Stern Show," according to People. "This was her last gasp, and I really was out of control, and I forgive her for making this choice. She probably felt she had nowhere to turn."

By the time Barrymore was 14, she was emancipated from her parents. In an extract from her memoir, "Wildflower," which previously appeared in The Guardian, Barrymore explained her reasons for parting ways with her mother Jaid.

"It's no secret that I had to part ways from my mother because we had driven our relationship into the ground," she wrote. "She had lost credibility as a mother by taking me to Studio 54 [so wrong, but so fun] instead of school. And I was out of control due to working since I was 11 months old and what that had done to my childhood, which made me grow up too fast."

Barrymore was able to forgive her father, John David Barrymore, before he died in 2004, but never fully reconciled with her mom. She did tell Vulture however, that she does not "blame" Jaid for the challenges she faced growing up.

"I choose very consciously not to see my life as things that have been done to me," she said. "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."

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