Drew Barrymore Has Forgiven Mom for Institutionalizing Her

She was placed in 'full psychiatric ward' at 13
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 23, 2021 6:01 PM CST
Drew Barrymore Has Forgiven Mom for Institutionalizing Her
Drew Barrymore attends the fourth annual Women's Wear Daily WWD Honors on Oct. 29, 2019, in New York.   (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

Drew Barrymore opened up about her troubled teen years in an interview with Howard Stern on Monday, her 46th birthday. The former child star, who was legally emancipated at 14, described being placed in a "full psychiatric ward" when she was 13. "I was in a place for a year and a half called Van Nuys Psychiatric, and you couldn’t mess around in there," Barrymore said, per E! Online. "If you did, you'd get thrown either in the padded room or get put in stretcher restraints and tied up." She said she was "out of control" at the time and had a mother who treated her more as a friend than a child, CNN reports. "I was going to clubs and not going to school and stealing my mom's car," she recalled.

Barrymore told Stern that for the first six to eight months, she was so angry she "couldn't see straight," but she has now forgiven her mother, Today reports. "This was her last gasp, and I really was out of control, and I forgive her for making this choice," Barrymore said. "She probably felt she had nowhere to turn." Barrymore now has two daughters of her own, 6-year-old Frankie and 8-year-old Olive. She says her experiences with her mother taught her a lot about what kind of parent she wants to be. "I think after, you know, 30, years of therapy, and a lot of soul searching and having kids myself, you know, I think she created a monster," she said of her mother. "And she didn't know what to do with the monster." (More Drew Barrymore stories.)

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