Drew Barrymore took tabloids to task for publishing headlines about her saying she’s looking forward to her estranged mother Jaid Barrymore’s death.
The situation stemmed from a recent interview with the 48-year-old former child star in New York Magazine. While discussing friends who have lost parents, Barrymore talked about her complicated relationship with her mother.
“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,” the actress 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.”
A short time later during the same interview, Barrymore seemed to walk back her original 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.”
After tabloids, including Page Six, picked up the story and published headlines claiming that Barrymore wished her mom was dead, the actress headed to social media to clarify her statements.
“You know what, to all you tabloids out there, you have been f***ing with my life since I was 13 years old. I have never said that I wish my mother was dead,” Barrymore told Instagram followers in a video message. “How dare you put those words in my mouth. 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.”
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She continued: “And that, for those of us who have to figure that out, in real time, cannot wait, as in they cannot wait for the time, not that the parent is dead. Don’t twist my words around or ever say that I wish my mother was dead. I have never said that. I never would.”
The talk show host has previously discussed her experiences growing up in Hollywood with her mom Jaid as her manager. She recalled being given a lot of freedom and being exposed to adult situations, including being taken to Studio 54 as a child.
Barrymore went to rehab at the age of 12 for drug and alcohol abuse and was placed into a psychiatric ward in California at 13 at her mother’s request.
“I think she created a monster, and she didn’t know what to do with the monster,” the “50 First Dates” actress told Howard Stern during a 2021 interview.
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During a 2022 interview, the actress took responsibility for her actions, saying she wasn’t an easy child to raise.
“Daughters to mothers, I think we have a predisposed expectation where we don’t want you to be selfish,” Barrymore told Hello Magazine. “My mom was selfish too and it screwed me up, but you know what, I carried that with me and I acted from a place of a wounded child who also felt like they had to be an adult too quickly, and I didn’t understand the parent-child dynamic.”
“As selfish as my mom was, I have to give her a lot of room too because I was not easy,” she said, describing her “wild child” teen years. “Our life was set up for crash and burn disaster, I was completely out of control.”
“She did not know how to control me anymore,” Barrymore said. “These were very painful things for both of us to go through…Her choices came from things that were real for her.”