Drew Barrymore goes public with intimacy after a woman accuses her of hating sex
Drew Barrymore set the record by giving some viewers the impression that she “hates sex” with recent comments on her eponymous talk show.
Last month, Barrymore, 47, addressed actor Andrew Garfield’s claim that he had given up sex for six months before playing a Jesuit priest in the 2016 film “Silence. In response, the actress – a single mother who was honest about her dating woes on the show – joked, “What’s wrong with me, six months doesn’t seem like a long time? I was like, ‘Is it?'”
But some people think such offhand comments about celibacy are wrong, as Barrymore recently discovered when approached by a woman after finishing a workout. “You look just like Drew Barrymore, except you look mentally healthy and …… she hates sex!” The woman told her.
After finally connecting that woman’s comment to what she said on the show last month, Barrymore felt moved to clarify how her views on intimacy have evolved over the years, from her wild upbringing as a child star to her current single status as a mom sharing two daughters with her third husband, Will Koppelman.
“At almost 48 years old, I feel very differently about intimacy than I did growing up,” E.T. shared in a new blog post titled “Love Rebels” on Sunday, the alien said. “I didn’t have role model parents and I grew up interacting with people in a mature way! I was looking for companionship! Validation! Excitement! Happiness! Hedonism! Fun! and adventure!!! Now, because I can’t get in a time machine to change my history …… [I] choose to look at it through the positive lens that is I lived it! I have lived a very rich and fulfilling life.
“However, after two children and a separation from my father made me cautious, I was happy to shift my focus in loving myself and my two daughters. I knew that didn’t include men, nor did it include having a period of time,” continues Barry Moore, who divorced Koppelman in 2016, adding the insight of her therapist, which helped her distinguish between sex and love. “Through my therapeutic work (with Barry), I realized that he said something and I had to write it down. He said, ‘Sex is not love! It is an expression of love.’ I’ve been searching my whole life for words like that to help me understand the difference, and now, thanks to him, I get it.”
The actress, who has never been kissed before, went on to explain how being a mother to 10-year-old Oliver and 8-year-old Frankie has changed the way she approaches relationships, both with herself and with others. Barrymore shared, “Since entering the life of a single mom, I’ve been unable to build close relationships.”
“I’m honored and excited to really work on myself and understand what parenting is, which is something I wasn’t fully aware of growing up and I had a lot of learning curves,” she continues. “I was intimidated. I was very successful. I was expected to do everything I could to get an education. The truth is, every family and every person is different, but I had to try to find my own way. I am also raising two daughters so how do we raise girls to be fit and capable, to love themselves and to realize that we live in a time where the images and messages they will see also contradict what I came to believe intimacy is! Intimacy is the thing that makes you feel good about yourself! I also talked about and learned that when something doesn’t make you feel good or makes you feel bad about yourself, pay as much attention to that as you can you feel great because there is a lesson there.”
While Barrymore is open about her dating life, she’s not looking for anything serious at the moment.
“I’m just in a completely different place in my life and maybe in the near future I’ll start a relationship …… but that’s not my priority at all,” she wrote. “So I’m not someone who needs sex and has to go out and be in a relationship with someone at that level. I am someone who is committed to raising young girls, my daughter and myself how I should behave as a woman. To function in this world! For a long time, relationships with men weren’t a top priority for me.
“Some people can get out of a marriage or relationship and find themselves in another relationship in the near future,” she notes. “There’s nothing wrong with that! Not at all. I don’t judge! I celebrate their journey! Because for some people it really works. It doesn’t work for me. I need to remain very celibate and respectful and somehow mourn the loss of a nuclear family, and I vow that I will find grace and acceptance for my daughters and a new normal for our blended family. This took time. I am proud of myself that I took that time. That’s what I, as my own individual, not myself, needed to do, and I’m honored that I respected myself as much as I respected the choices of others. I just came to laugh at the fact that being with my partner is not my personal priority, but that doesn’t mean that one day it won’t be a fact. I need time. My views on sex have really changed.
Barrymore, who has been married three times, also reflected on his love life over the years.
“I wish when I was younger I could have been as chaste and considerate as I am now as a 48-year-old woman,” she admits. “I wish my mother, my father or my friends had taught me to have age-appropriate business and that there was a way to be a classy young woman! Some things are fun, but there are also boundaries that can lead to tremendous self-esteem. When you have a choice, you see sex as an expression of love, not love itself …… Well, I’m glad to be in my life now. But don’t forget I’m a naughty monkey being rebellious, quirky, comedic and eccentric, not judging others and really not wanting anyone highly involved in my choices when it comes to this fragile subject but because I’ve been an open book all my life but here we are!”
Barrymore concludes her essay by making clear where she stands on the issue of sex.
“So for the record, I don’t hate sex!” She wrote. “I finally realized that love and sex are not the same thing at all. I’ve spent my life searching …… to be a cool woman, not a boastful party girl. Also, when you grow up and are in a position to marry your kids, you think you’re only going to be with this person for the rest of your life and then that doesn’t happen? This blows my mind, to put it mildly. But I’m lucky to have my cup runneth over in the love department: I have my two daughters, and for the first time in my life, I actually included self-love.”
She concludes, “I want everyone to find out what makes them feel good about themselves and seek it out! If they happen to find out what makes them feel bad about themselves, they will pay attention and avoid it, or even abstain from causing emotions that don’t lead to self-esteem. Of course, find out what makes them feel good about themselves and seek it out! And stay passionate and protective in the fact that we all deserve love! We all deserve to give love! But love and sex are not the same thing at all.”
The talk show host’s reflections on relationships and motherhood echoed comments she made during a January appearance on CBS this morning.
“I never realized and said out loud that I didn’t know how to date my kids,” she shared. “The father of my children is thrilled to be remarried to the most amazing woman in the world, Avery [Mishler]. My kids have this extraordinary stepmother. Our processes are different, and they’re so practical and complete and happening on the side of the street. And I think I’ve been on the sidelines – in a beautiful, respectful purgatory.
“I kept saying ‘it’s me,’ ‘it’s my choice,’ ‘I’m not ready,’ ‘I want to wait for a while,'” she continued. “I think I didn’t say it out loud really because I have these two daughters.”
