Drew Barrymore has choice words for tabloids clickbaiting her relationship with her mom

After decades in the seldom-forgiving limelight, Drew Barrymore no longer tiptoes around taking the entertainment news media to task. When a select few publications ran amok with a snippet from a recent in-depth profile of Barrymore in Vulture, Barrymore uploaded a video setting the record straight, and holding the tabloids accountable for their negative effect on her well-being.

“You know what, to all you tabloids out there, you have been fucking with my life since I was 13 years old,” Barrymore begins in the clip, which she posted across her social media. “I have never said that I wished my mother was dead. How dare you put those words in my mouth.”

Barrymore emancipated herself from her mother, Ildikó Jaid Barrymore, when she was 14 years old; as Drew elucidates in the profile, she has struggled to grapple with their relationship even as she consistently facilitates discussions of mother-daughter relationships on her show, The Drew Barrymore Show, with guests like Brooke Shields and Jeannette McCurdy.

“All their moms are gone, and my mom’s not,” Drew tells Vulture’s E. Alex Jung. “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. But I have to f—ing grow in spite of her being on this planet.”

Ultimately, Barrymore regretted her comments, telling Vulture in the same profile: “I dared to say it, and I didn’t feel good. 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.”

Just because Barrymore regrets her comments, however, doesn’t mean she excuses articles misconstruing them to mean she wants her mother dead. Barrymore, whose open-hearted onscreen ethos has buoyed her talk show to on and offline success, wants more grace for the personal work she’s trying to do.

“I have been vulnerable and tried to figure out a very difficult, painful relationship while admitting it is difficult to do while a parent is alive,” Barrymore says in the follow-up video. She concludes: “Do not twist my words around or ever say that I wished my mother was dead. I have never said that, I never would, and in fact, I go on to say that I wish that I never have to live an existence where I would wish that on someone. Because that is sick.”