Drew Barrymore beat the child star curse and became a Hollywood institution. She’s had a long journey to get to this point, and for years, she was more famous for her partying, public relationships, and addiction struggles off-camera than her movies. But Drew managed to come out on the other side – not unscathed – but stronger from it. And she’s become one of America’s sweethearts in a career that’s run through several different celebrity archetypes, ranging from: child star to sex symbol to scream queen to wholesome romantic comedy lead, and finally – to a fixture of daytime television.

Transcript

Intro

From her breakout childhood role as Gertie in ET to Never Been Kissed and Charlie’s Angels, Drew Barrymore is a Hollywood institution. But she’s had a long journey to get to this point, and for years, she was more famous for her behavior off-camera than on. After coming from a dynastic Hollywood acting family, she became a fixture of tabloid conversation about her partying, public relationships, and struggles with drugs and alcohol. But Drew managed to come out on the other side – not unscathed – but stronger from it – to become one of America’s sweethearts.

Drew Barrymore: This totally goes to show you, if you keep working your dreams can come true. -You Had to Be There.

And her recent renaissance is the capstone on a career that has run through several different celebrity archetypes, ranging from: child star to sex symbol to scream queen to wholesome romantic comedy lead, and finally – to a fixture of daytime television. Here’s how Drew Barrymore beat the curse of the child star, and why it’s so satisfying for us to watch her succeed.

Child Star

Drew Barrymore was practically destined for fame. She’s a member of the famous Barrymore acting family. Her great-uncle Lionel Barrymore won an Oscar in 1931, and is well-known for his role as the villainous Mr. Potter in It’s A Wonderful Life. Her father, John Drew Barrymore, was a frequent guest star on popular TV Westerns like Rawhide and Gunsmoke. So it made all the sense in the world that Drew would star in ET at the age of seven, and that she would be received with open arms. The movie marked her arrival on the world stage as a huge star, before she was out of elementary school.

As a child star, Barrymore managed to combine a childish innocence with a surprising level of poise and charm – qualities that were apparent starting from her famous childhood appearance on The Tonight Show. This made Drew Barrymore a household name, but it also dramatically increased society’s expectations for her. No one is ever really ready to be globally famous, least of all a child—and being that famous made it much less likely that anyone around her would enforce any boundaries. Drew’s mother frequently took her to infamous party destination Studio 54 and she was allowed to drink in bars at the age of nine.

With global success and little to no control over what she could and couldn’t do, Drew developed addictions to drugs and alcohol. By the age of 13, she was in rehab—a development that sounds too outlandish to be true, but shows the reality of how punishing the entertainment industry could be for child stars at the time. After rehab, she spent a year and a half involuntarily hospitalized in a mental institution. Drew also survived a suicide attempt, and even spent several months living with folk musician David Crosby, who acted as a sterner, more intense, adult influence.

Drew Barrymore: “This was, you know, school of hard knocks, in the most severe way.”/ it’s what I needed.”- The Howard Stern Show.

At 14, Barrymore became legally emancipated, a process she describes as quote “separating” from her parents.

This turbulent start would have no doubt meant the end of so many other actors’ careers – but, quite miraculously, it wasn’t for Drew.

The Hollywood Mainstream

After the worst of this period had ended, Barrymore was still a bit of a Hollywood wild child. She enjoyed being in the spotlight and working in the often-insidious industry – and her partying and self-destructive exploits were gleefully consumed by the public. Her big comeback role in 1992’s Poison Ivy was a character suspiciously similar to the public perception of Barrymore herself: a dangerous, manipulative young woman. After all, while we love and idolize famous young women, we also turn on them when they become too adult, something that’s plagued stars like Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, and Lindsay Lohan. We often demand that these young women become overly sexualized, then punish them for doing exactly what society expects: Something that Barrymore learned firsthand in 1995 when she made another infamous appearance on a late-night talk show dancing for and flashing David Letterman on his birthday. That same year, she posed nude for Playboy. And for her 20th birthday, ET director and godfather Steven Spielberg sent Barrymore a quilt that said “cover up,” along with a version of her Playboy cover doctored with clothes.

But slowly, over the course of several years, Barrymore’s onscreen persona changed to become something surprising: wholesome. Through a series of well-made movie choices by Drew, she became a go-to actress for romantic comedies – perfectly striking a balance between approachability and charisma in movies like The Wedding Singer, Music and Lyrics, and Going the Distance. Even as an action hero in Charlie’s Angels, she remained endearing, especially when her time spent working on the movie resulted in her brief marriage to co-star Tom Green. Some of these roles even played up the contrast between Barrymore’s cheery disposition and her earlier filthy public image. But why did she make these choices – that led to her ultimate success as a rom-com queen? Partly, it’s because she really believes in the genre. These movies are also good business, and Barrymore is nothing if not thoughtful about her work. Even during her chaotic childhood, she was deliberate about wanting to forge a more sustainable career for herself—something she learned from godfather Steven Spielberg.

Drew Barrymore: “If you’d really like to have a long career and you’d like to keep going, you have to be really careful about your choices and you have to be thoughtful.”- The Drew Barrymore Show.

And at a relatively young age, she picked Hollywood role models who would serve as a long-term inspiration—people like her Babes in Toyland co-star Keanu Reeves.

Drew Barrymore: “I would look around and see the behaviors of the people I wanted to be like one day, and they were always the kind, gracious, hard-working, lovely examples.”- The Drew Barrymore Show.

Talk Show Celebrity

Drew carefully constructed an impressive filmography for herself – and these movies made her a safer household name, setting the stage for the latest, enormously successful turn in her career: as a beloved daytime talk show host. The Drew Barrymore Show premiered in September 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a Hollywood fixture who’s survived the industry for decades, she’s now a comforting presence, capable of drawing on individual relationships with so many of her guests. As an adult, she’s been able to revisit the childish innocence of her childhood work on ET, and connect that earnestness to the way she is today.

She’s also been able to look back on her past struggles, and frame them as part of a necessary process of growing up. In an interview with The Guardian, she says that, quote, “I don’t think I understood what was good, or pleasurable, or bad. I was probably chasing joy, but I don’t think it was the real joy. I was just too young to know.” In fact, her show is successful in part because of Drew’s tumultuous past. She’s able to empathize with her guests (who are often facing similar challenges as young women in Hollywood) in a sincere way that’s rare on the talk show circuit.

Drew Barrymore:“I want to talk to you, and have you know that I’ve had the people come and take me away. I’ve been locked up in solitary confinement.”-The Drew Barrymore Show.

Her ability to connect with guests like Paris Hilton, Demi Lovato, Jeanette McCurdy, Billie Eilish, and Mae Whitman makes The Drew Barrymore Show genuinely appealing, earnest TV.

This transition to talk show host has coincided with Drew taking an indefinite hiatus from acting, choosing instead to focus on the relative consistency of her show. And Drew Barrymore has never been more popular—she managed to reach the pinnacle of success and public adoration by leaving part of the entertainment industry. Largely, that’s because of her own children. In the same Guardian interview, she says that she couldn’t even consider ignoring her children to focus on her career, in part because of her own childhood. Quote, “No. I knew I would not repeat the mistakes of my parents. I knew I would never do that to a kid. I wouldn’t not be there, or put them in too-adult circumstances…I would never have had children unless I was incredibly stable, and willing to put them first.”

In part, this new job – and thus her new social media presence – has made Drew become excessively memeable. People love to make light fun of moments like her bursting into tears during home renovations – or when she encouraged us all to dance in the rain. And it’s mostly people laughing with Drew rather than at her—because they know what she’s been through, and it’s easy to be inspired by someone enduring all of that to remain relentlessly positive. Her joy feels like our joy – and with the deluge of bad news these days, we’re eager to see unabashed displays of positivity like Drew’s.

Conclusion

Drew Barrymore is a rarity: a troubled child star who has managed to successfully come out on the other side as a widely popular figure. In fact, she’s able to put herself in conversation with her past—sometimes literally. But it’s worth noting the way she’s been able to have this “career renaissance” —by doubling down on the traditional values she was widely perceived to be violating in her younger days, first as a lead in romantic comedies, and now as a talk show host and famous mom. So, the issues that caused Drew’s problems as a young woman haven’t gone away, but hopefully she can be a resource for the next girls who face them – and the evidence thus far points to yes. In fact, Drew has said she isn’t going to hide any aspects of her past from her daughters – good, bad, or ugly — because she wants them to know her as a complete person. And that’s an example the rest of us can learn from. So, cheers to the Drew-issance, may it bring us all closer to healing our own inner child.

Drew Barrymore: “I grew up and got in charge of my own destiny / There’s so much life.”- The Drew Barrymore Show.