For many, Drew Barrymore is the face we grew up. After bursting onto the screens in E.T., the young star became a familiar face and household name, and her roles in some of Hollywood’s biggest movies made her not only a rarefied movie star, but a pop culture icon, too. Barrymore is someone we look up to while also feeling a certain kind of kinship rarely experienced with other stars. While an air of mystery tends to hover around celebrities, shielding them from the public gaze as they emerge only for red carpet events or the odd paparazzi sighting, Barrymore has instead removed such a distance and invites fans into her world and headspace with frequency.
Now, as the host of her own talk show, Barrymore is being even more candid than before. Known for her trademark humour and never one to shy away from those emotional topics others would perhaps find hard to discuss with friends, let alone millions of viewers world wide, Barrymore has discussed everything from the pitfalls of modern dating, her sex-life as a single mum, and the struggles of motherhood. But it was her more recent conversation about divorce that viewers found particularly emotional, as Barrymore expressed she “never” plans to marry again after ending three marriages in the past.
Speaking with podcast hosts Joanna Teplin and Clea Shearer on Best Friend Energy, Barrymore detailed why she has such strong views now on marriage, while also explaining how she coparents with her ex, Will Kopelman.
Speaking about her divorce with Kopelman, Barrymore expressed that she never imagined being alone again. “I never thought I would be with anyone else,” she said of her marriage to Kopelman, whom she married in 2012 before the pair divorced in 2016. “I married someone early on for a sort of [a]….logistical thing,” she said, referencing her marriage to bar owner Jeremy Thomas in 1994. She later married actor Tom Green, who Barrymore described as “such a lovely person,” adding, “We were just young, and we were just kids. We tried to do something, and it didn’t work out.”
But after meeting Kopelman, Barrymore believed this would be the relationship that went the distance. “When I married my kids’ father, it was like, that was it. I’m going to have that nuclear family, and we’re going to be a four-top at dinner for life. And when that just couldn’t happen that way, I felt like it took me a very long time to come to terms with it,” she described.
“I just did not accept divorce lightly. I really mourned the death of this dream for many, many years.”
drew barrymore
After the divorce, Barrymore turned to alcohol to “numb the pain and feel good,” but learned instead to sit with the pain after getting sober, which she told CNN in 2021 that she’s been for two years. Barrymore said her experiences in the past have seen her not want to marry again, particularly as the next “would be my fourth marriage. So unless I’m cool like Elizabeth Taylor…it’s not a good look.”
But while their marriage may have ended, Kopelman and Barrymore are invested as coparents and according to Barrymore, they work well together as they continue to be close as a family, with Barrymore even living within blocks of Kopelman’s. While Barrymore admits that she’s “slayed more dragons than I ever have in my whole life” in the last decade, the struggles encountered ultimately led to teachable moments as she’s learned the importance of allowing herself to take breaks.
“I remember when Simone Biles said, ‘I can’t do this, I’m gonna stop.’ I was like, ‘Oh my god. I’ve never stopped running.’ I wish for more people to know that they can take a pause,” said Barrymore.
