Born into a dynasty of actors (daughter of John Drew Barrymore and granddaughter of the first performers John Barrymore and Dolores Costello), Drew Barrymore was destined to become a star, but fame played her several bad moments that took her to the limit to one of the best known performers in Hollywood.
At only seven years old, he stood out thanks to the movie
ET the extraterrestrial
, at eight he was already attending his first parties at the hands of his own mother, Jaid, and at nine he drank his first beer and smoked his first cigarette.
His parents' divorce, caused by his father's alcoholism, which made him a violent person, did not help, and at age 11 Drew Barrymore was already a marijuana and cocaine user.
A turbulent past that the actress had already related in her memoirs,
Little Girl Lost
, and that she has remembered these days when she revealed details of her time in a psychiatric and rehabilitation center when she was only 13 years old.
“I had problems and too many resources.
I went to bars instead of school, I stole my mother's car ... You know, I was out of control, "said the interpreter on Howard Stern's Sirius XM this week.
So out of control that he even attempted suicide.
To stop this spiral of suffering and self-destruction, her mother chose to place her daughter in a mental institution.
“Sometimes it was fun, but other times I was angry and frustrated with myself.
And when that happened they would send me to "the thing", Barrymore pointed out and later explained that "the thing" was a specialized center for patients with addictions and psychiatric disorders where he spent 18 months.
“I was in a place for a year and a half called Van Nuys Psychiatric and there you couldn't waste your time.
If you did, they would lock you up in a padded room or tie you up on a stretcher ”, he said.
It took eight months for him to realize that what he was experiencing at the center was somehow positive for his future.
“Locked up there, I wondered why this was happening to me.
In the end I realized that maybe I needed the craziest structure and discipline, because having everything so accessible was ruining my world and maybe a shock treatment like that was necessary to be able to restart the rest of my life ”, has said.
The therapy went well, although it took another 30 years of professional help to forgive his mother, whom he eliminated from his life after leaving the center and whom he accused of his own problems.
“He created a monster and didn't know what to do with the monster.
It was her last attempt, and I was really out of control, and I have forgiven her for making this decision.
He probably felt he had nowhere to turn, ”he said.
"It's the worst pain I've ever known," he acknowledged about the mixed feelings he felt when, at the end of that treatment, he stopped talking to his mother.
Now, reconciled, he only has good words for her: “I feel kindness towards my mother.
I feel empathy and understanding ”.
These scandals, added to her precocious relationships - with just 25 years she had already accumulated two divorces - slowed down the actress' career, but soon Hollywood reopened the doors for her.
In the 1990s alone, she participated in about 20 films:
Everyone Says I Love You
,
Mean Girls
,
The Ideal Man
,
Batman Forever
,
Scream
or
They Have Never Kissed Me
, produced by herself through her company, Flower Films.
In recent years, he has also featured in other hit titles -
Charlie's Angels
,
50 First
Dates,
and the
Santa Clarita Diet
series
on Netflix - in addition to other productions he has directed or produced.
Far from becoming the industry's much-feared broken toy, Barrymore knew how to channel his fame and success and guide his steps on the right track.
Her addiction problems are now a thing of the past and, two decades later, the actress has achieved the job and personal stability she has always wanted.
Her life changed when her daughters, Olive (2012) and Frankie (2014) were born, the result of her third marriage to Will Kopelman, from whom she separated in 2016 but with whom she maintains a good relationship.
Since the arrival of her two daughters in the world, she knew that she did not want to repeat the same mistakes of her parents and motherhood, she said, she changed her priorities.
“Before the cinema was my whole world.
Now it's girls, friends, work, health… I want my daughters to grow up thinking: 'I don't know how the hell I was there for all things and, moreover, I worked, ”she recently stated in a talk with Charlize Theron on her own program,
The Drew Barrymore Show
.
