REVEALED: Drew Barrymore's Late Father Attacked Pregnant Mother While She Was Carrying Actress
March 4 2024, Published 4:30 p.m. ET
Drew Barrymore's complicated relationship with her late father had started long before her rise to fame, RadarOnline.com can report.
Barrymore's troubled dad, John Drew Barrymore, was absent for most of her life and had attacked her pregnant mother, Jaid, in 1974 when she was carrying the star.
According to the National Enquirer, that was a turning point for Jaid, who rented a one-bedroom apartment in West Hollywood and took a job working as an office clerk until a week before Drew's birth in Feb. 1975.
As fate would have it, Drew first got her break in Hollywood at just 11 months old after being chosen to appear in a Gaines Puppy Choice TV commercial.
By six years old, she was on her way to becoming a household name with her breakout role in ET and a glowing review from renowned director Steven Spielberg who said Drew "just blew me away" with her talent and star power.
Following a series of flicks with less-than-stellar reviews in the years afterward, Drew returned to school and dealt with bullying from her fellow pupils.
The drastic change amid her adolescence led Drew to cope in her own way, immersing herself in the partying scene, hitting up LA nightclubs, smoking cigarettes, and drinking.
In a biography about her life written by co-authors Leah Furman and Elina Furman, they noted how she became a drug addict by 12. Drew has been candid about her wild past, taking her first drink at age 9, smoking marijuana at 10, and using cocaine at 12.
The box office sensation landed in rehab the next year after stealing Jaid's credit card and going on a spending spree.
When she was 13, her mom sent her to a hospital called Van Nuys Psychiatric, a mental health facility for adults in California, where she was placed in a youth program within the center.
Drew went on to divorce her parents in 1990 and was emancipated from both at the age of 14.
"When I got emancipated by the courts at 14 years old, the umbilical cord was severed, and I have not been the same since," she wrote in a Mother’s Day blog post. "It was necessary for me to step away and start to become my own person. And at the age of 14, my own parent."
John died in Nov. 2004 and Drew said that she has since forgiven both of her parents.
The actress recently spoke about her late father on an episode of her talk show, The Drew Barrymore Show, during which country star Reba McEntire spoke about the current division in the world and how people just need to respect other opinions and "just live in peace and harmony."
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Drew said that point of view reminded her of John. "He just was always like, 'Just live and let live, man,'" she shared. "More of that, please."
In spite of their tumultuous past, Drew said she learned a lot from him, adding, "I'm using a very bizarre example of a human, who's nobody's poster child of how to live a life. But 'just live and let live, man' was one of the best gifts he ever taught me, the little I was around him."