Drew Barrymore slams tabloids: 'I never wished my mother dead'

Drew Barrymore has angrily responded to tabloid reports claiming she had wished her mother dead.

"You know what? To all you tabloids out there, you have been [messing] with my life since I was 13 years old. I have never said that I wish my mother was dead. How dare you put those words in my mouth,” began the actor-producer and daytime talk show host, 48, in a nearly minute-long video on her Instagram and Facebook. Some tabloids had taken an interview comment out of context to run headlines implying Barrymore wished her mother were dead. 

In that New York magazine interview posted Monday on the publication’s website Vulture.com, the writer references a “Drew Barrymore Show” interview with former Nickelodeon child star Jennette McCurdy, who wrote the 2022 memoir “I’m Glad My Mom Died.” Barrymore, scion of an acting dynasty stretching to silent-movie days, has had a famously tempestuous relationship with mother Ildiko Jaid Mako Barrymore, 77, who separated from actor husband John Drew Barrymore while pregnant with their daughter.

Drew Barrymore in the magazine interview said of McCurdy and other child stars with difficult maternal relationships that, “All their moms are gone, and my mom’s not,” adding, “And I’m like, Well, I don’t have that luxury. But I cannot wait.”

She immediately made clear she meant that she couldn't  wait to have a healthy relationship: “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 … grow in spite of her being on this planet.”

Her saying even that weighed on her, the article stated, noting that an hour later, “she already regrets suggesting any ill will toward her mom.”

“I dared to say it, and I didn’t feel good,” Barrymore told the magazine. “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.”

In her social media video, she goes on to say, “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. 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. In fact, I go on to say that I wish that I never have to live an existence where I would wish that on someone. Because that is sick."

The article included a postscript from Barrymore, reading in part, “I texted my mom for her birthday and she told me she loved me and she was proud of me.”