Yahoo Sports Drew Barrymore Talks Complicated Relationship with Her Mom: 'I Actually Want Her to Be Happy'
Drew Barrymore won legal emancipation from her mother Jaid Barrymore and father John Drew Barrymore at age 14 and remains financially supportive of her mother
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Drew Barrymore is offering complicated insight into her relationship with her mother, Jaid Barrymore.
In a new Vulture profile published Monday, Barrymore, 48, said she will "never not care" about her mother, decades after she won emancipation from Jaid and her father John Drew Barrymore at 14 years old.
“All their moms are gone, and my mom’s not,” Barrymore told the outlet, in reference to her neighbors in New York City. “And I’m like, Well, I don’t have that luxury. But I cannot wait. 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," the actress and talk show host added of her mother. Vulture reported in its story that Drew still supports Jaid financially. "But I have to f------ grow in spite of her being on this planet."
During the interview, Barrymore clarified that she was not wishing negativity on her mother. “I dared to say it, and I didn’t feel good,” she told the outlet. “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.”
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Barrymore later sent the outlet's reporter a text regarding her relationship with Jaid, in which she wrote: "I texted my mom for her birthday and she told me she loved me and she was proud of me. I don’t care how old you get or how big your mission is."
"When your mom tells you she loves you, you revert back to small," she added. "And the fact that she loves me with my truth and my honesty is the best time I have ever heard her say it."
The actress told Vulture that she texts her mother, and wrote a Mother's Day blog post in May, in an effort to work on her relationship with Jaid.
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“I was really excited I could tell you I’ve done some serious work and I do feel different. I forgive my mom. I forgive my dad," she said, referencing her late father who died in 2004. "I’ve never forgiven myself, but I’d like to and I’m ready to.”
As Vulture noted, Barrymore has made references to her mother on The Drew Barrymore Show in recent months, most notably as she and Brooke Shields discussed both of their mom's behaviors while managing their daughters' careers as child actors.
During that episode, Barrymore recalled that Jaid "went and dated my boyfriends," among other actions that she described as "behav[ing] so absolutely inappropriately."
Back in December, Barrymore told PEOPLE that she will "always support" Jaid.
"I can't turn my back on the person who gave me my life. I can't do it," she said at the time. "It would hurt me so much. I would find it so cruel. But there are times where I've realized that our chemistry and behavior will drum up a feeling in me where I have to say, 'Okay, I need a break again.'"
The actress added at the time that she and Jaid have created "a lot of boundaries" and "taken many pauses in our lives," which she said she's grown more comfortable with as she's aged.
"The more time goes by and the older I get, the less guilt and corrosive toxic shame and just absolute discomfort comes with it," she told PEOPLE. "The more you sort of go, 'My God I'm going to be 48, when does that guilty little girl that's still so sad that I don't have this amazing nuclear relationship with my family, when does that become okay?' "
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