Drew Barrymore Gets Emotional Opening Up About Shame, Parenting and What Steven Spielberg Taught Her

maria will you come up to our digital space i'd be honored to i would be your little subject and i could get a piercing yeah okay and how many piercings will you have now what number are we at i have eight uh when i was six years old steven spielberg not to be a name dropper i swear i'm not being a name dropper he said i had to wait until i was 10 years old to get my ears pierced and if i did that he would get them pierced with me and i didn't really have that kind of like certainly i you know my dad wasn't around so i really looked at him like a father and i was excited but i was also so happy to have like a man set a boundary with me not that i understood it that way at the time but i i agreed and so i waited and i did i got my ears pierced when i was 10 um on my 10th birthday i was so excited i mean like when i would walk into his office wearing lipstick he'd be like please take that off and i was always like okay like that's how parents are supposed to you know function they're supposed to make you feel like you need to be age appropriate and my mom and i just didn't live like that we lived like friends not parents so my daughters they have asked me to get their ears pierced since as long as they could speak but i said you know what i'm going to follow steven spielberg's advice and you're going to have to wait till you're 10. if if it's okay with you if i may i would love to bring them to you i would love that it would be great such a full circle moment for me because like like the first parenting i ever had like was him saying like no you have to wait if i could wait anybody can wait my mom and i were struggling a lot for money and um there was a bunch of endorsement deals that came our way after e.t and he said don't take them because you'll just be as you know you'll you'll water yourself down and you'll sort of sell out too quickly and you could be more of a flash in the pan and if you really would like to have a long career and you would like to keep going you have to be very careful about your choices and you have to be thoughtful and it was such good advice and i totally got it when i was seven and i said okay then let's not do anything let's wait and my mom listened to him too and we just kept doing movies and making our living that way because there was so many like commercials that came our way after e.t all these brands and companies and my mom and i were really struggling so it was very tempting but we just thought do what stephen does he knows what he's talking about and he i knew he had my best interest which wasn't what i felt about everybody i trusted him more than anybody else and honestly not until i was in my late 20s did i sign on to be a cover girl it was like really the first major endorsement deal like literally my whole life was like no to everything because of his advice and he was right is there any other like life advice that you've gotten that really sticks out like that when i did my playboy he had his whole heart department cover me up in the magazine and he sent me a large quilt that said cover up and he like turned me into like this 1950s more wholesome woman but he never made me feel bad he always had a sweetness and a humor about it there was always love with everything he did but he wanted me to be a good girl you know ironically e.t said be good and then i wasn't a good girl for a long time you know and then i had daughters and i felt like i learned so much about what was important or appropriate and it shocks me now that i would ever be someone who would do playboy or like dance on david letterman's desk i like don't even feel attached to that person it feels like a memory but i'm so glad that i did all those things because i think it's what made me seek out being appropriate and safe it's like i lived life in reverse maybe too i think i had like a midlife crisis at 13. but it's fun raising girls now knowing all that i do because i'm like oh i've learned a lot of things and it is so fun was there something that surprised you when you became a parent that you weren't expecting i was surprised that you could still not be ashamed of your past embrace it and not pretend to be someone else or think that you shouldn't have done those things that they could be a part of what builds you as a character and a human and that you don't have to have regret or shame or denial that you can take all of that as like tools in your arsenal to carry with you into your present and future and that really surprised me because i thought god what if what if my kids find out you know things about my past and i just thought i can't wait to share my whole journey with them and i'm glad they have me who is so convicted about them being kids and stable and appropriate and all these things that weren't exactly my journey and i don't parent them the way i parent myself because i think i did have shame in how i parented myself how could i let myself you know become so wild or fall into drugs or lose my career at 13 or get locked up in an institution you know have relationships too young i mean there were so many things that like brought on so much shame i felt like i had to apologize to everyone but then i also felt like really liberated i was like well guess what i'm not perfect good i don't have to pretend to be i'm still rebellious i'm getting my ears pierced right now you know my kids know that like i swear and i'm not perfect and i'm not trying to pretend to be some like laced up person and deny my past and i sinned and you will have a different life i'm like no no i really learned a lot of things here's what i learned you're gonna figure out what works for you but this is how i'm gonna parent you because i can see a lack of parenting doesn't you know isn't ideal but it's it's been a lot of learning i really didn't want to screw up as a parent but you do you make mistakes and there are such learning curves i think shame is something that we can collect in our lives but how we deal with it is kind of the art of life and i'm wondering like you were talking about like why i got so deep and dark and weird no i love it do you have like one specific thing that you look at at this point and say that could be my legacy or this could be the takeaway from everything i've done i mean work wise i would say that like ever after taught me the most because it just we as girls are told that cinderella who is kind which is a very very important trait for us to embody but it also taught us to wait to be rescued and that movie and that story taught me that i could rescue myself that you that one should rescue themselves and still get love and the prince if you want and all that good stuff but don't wait don't wait to be rescued rescue yourself first and then you can go find anything and do everything and anything that was very liberating for me as like a young woman definitely freed me up from old cliches that might have held me back in my life i know that people want to feel safe whether you're a kid or you're an adult you want to feel safe now my kids are first can i keep them safe can i make them feel safe and then how can i do that with each and every person that i encounter i was put on this planet to raise two girls talk about second chances i could have been such a disaster in my own life but i got to thrive and survive into the luxury and fortune and privilege of being a parent to two girls everything must have happened for a reason then everything made sense this was all hunting and gathering information for them okay cool and you know all they're gonna say when i get home is give me i want mom what'd you think oh my i just couldn't love it more you

Channel: The Drew Barrymore Show

Views: 62,932

Keywords: Digital Originals, Inspiring

Id: 8n8aV0PaVkM

Length: 9min 54sec (594 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 18 2022