Drew Barrymore is reflecting on how her two-year stay at a rehabilitation facility as a young teen changed her life.
During Friday’s episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, the Emmy winner sat down with Mae Martin, who uses they/them pronouns, to discuss their recently released Netflix series, Wayward. The thriller — which stars Alyvia Alyn Lind, Sidney Topliffe, and Toni Collette — follows two friends who attend an academy for trouble teens and is loosely inspired by Martin’s real-life friend Nicole, who was “sent to one of these troubled teen institutes” for two years.
“I also was someone who got taken away and put in a place for two years,” Barrymore said. To which Martin responded, “I did not know that. I mean, I know that you were a wayward teen — as was I, and I was in rehab and stuff — but I didn’t know that you were at one of those places.”
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Drew Barrymore in 1982
In a 2015 interview with The Guardian, Barrymore revealed that she underwent an 18-month stint at a rehabilitation facility for drug and alcohol addiction at age 13. She told the outlet that her younger self “really was alone” at the time “and it felt… terrible. It was a really rebellious time. I would run off. I was very, very angry.”
While speaking with Martin, Barrymore explained that she knew that they had a real understanding of what it was like to reside in one such facility. “I didn’t know that about you, but watching the show there was way too much accuracy,” she said. “It was too real for me in that element where I knew there was no way you weren’t telling an authentic perspective.”
Martin confirmed that they were 16 when they entered their respective facility. “And I don’t know about you,” they said, “but now, as an adult, I feel so protective of young people and having had that experience of being pathologized at a very young age for things that are just kind of… yeah, I think that all went into it.”
Turning to the audience, Martin quickly clarified that Wayward itself is not a heavy watch despite its serious subject matter.
“No it’s not!” Barrymore agreed. “A lot of people who have not had that experience or that track — by the way, watch out, something’s coming because none of us escape breakdowns or rebirths or the excruciation of what it takes to get to that. It’s coming sometime at some time in some form.”
“We got it out of the way, hopefully,” Martin said, prompting Barrymore to reply, “We did!”
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Well, sort of. “Oh, no I found another one at 40 which was interesting,” Barrymore admitted a moment later, echoing previous comments she’s made on her talk show about it being a difficult decade. “Yeah, I thought, ‘Oh, 14, this is rock bottom.’ Turns out I hit it at 40 as well.”
Still, Barrymore managed to find the bright side. “We pull ourselves up, hopefully, and we find people that encourage us to tell the truth and to finally have the opposite of shame, which is what comes with any type of erratic behavior or society telling you ‘that’s not appropriate at this age’ or ‘what you’re doing is out of control,’” she said. “That is shame. And when you live with shame, it is crippling.”
The Drew Barrymore Show/YouTube
Drew Barrymore with Mae Martin on ‘The Drew Barrymore Show’
Barrymore went on to note that she had “a lot of lightness in my experience in the institution,” which she saw similarly echoed in the show. “I know that sounds wild, but it was encouragement to say your truths, to be brave, to find humor and heroism in your journey,” she added. “And it’s the best thing that ever happened to me, honestly.”
She continued, “And I hold a lot of it sacrosanct, but it wasn’t easy. It was hard as hell and I found that the tone that you brought to the show was true to a life experience when you gotta be broken and get fixed.”
Martin agreed, adding, “And you’ve just got to hope that the people in charge are not Toni Collette as a villain, you know? You have to trust the people in charge!”
Barrymore detailed her experience staying at the Van Nuys Psychiatric hospital in a 2023 blog post, noting at the time that she “bonded with a lot of the kids” there “because like me, they did not know where to put their anger and they did not know how to live life anymore without the need to get high or self-destruct in some form and fashion.”
She went on to describe the experience as both “revealing and healing” at the same exact time. “I lived a boundaryless life and job,” Barrymore wrote. “And this place, as hellacious as it was, it was exactly what I needed from the too much excess my life had become on the outside.”
The Drew Barrymore Show airs weekdays on CBS.
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