Celebrity profiles are tricky things, beholden to any number of masters. When writing one, you’re trying to do a bunch of stuff: Make a famous person look human, tell a story about what meeting them is like, help them promote their projects, and also (obviously) psychologically speculate on what their absent father figures have to do with the state of their modern relationships. You know, like you do:
That last point was really hammered home by the above “profile” of actress Drew Barrymore, which was brought to the internet’s viral attention today by political analyst Adam Baron. The piece apparently ran in a recent issue of the in-flight magazine for Egypt Air and is, to put it lightly, some extremely weird stuff, full of factual inaccuracies, comments about the actress’ weight, and the general feel of something that’s been loosely translated from another language, despite the fact that it was, presumably, conducted in English. At one point, the author talks about all the “kilograms” Barrymore has recently lost, and she supposedly responds with “I feel overwhelmed when someone tells me that I have regained my image and managed to lose that extra weight, especially that I felt depressed due to the significant increase in my weight after delivering [her youngest child] Frankie.” There’s also the article’s bizarre introduction, in which it’s noted that:
It is known that Barrymore has had almost 17 relationships, engagements and marriages; psychologists believe that her behavior is only natural since she lacked the male role model in her life after her parents’ divorce when she was only 9 years old. Ever since that time, she has been subconsciously seeking attention and care from a male figure; but unfortunately things do not always go as planned and she has not yet succeeded in any relationship for various reasons.
Even weirder, somehow, is the bickering now ensuing about the article’s origins; Barrymore’s team says she “did not participate” in the interview, a claim refuted by both the magazine’s staff, and the credited writer, Aida Takla O’Reilly, the former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Takla contends that the article is “genuine and far from fake,” despite all evidence to the contrary.