Nothing can break Drew Barrymore’s bond with her mother, Jaid, not even the actress’ very public emancipation. In the Golden Globe winner’s new memoir, Wildflower, she opened up about her relationship with her mom after being emancipated at age 14.
“I still support her — I must know that she is taken care of or I simply cannot function,” Barrymore, 40, wrote (via Vulture). “I am grateful to this woman for bringing me into this world, and it would crush me to know she was in need anywhere.”
Barrymore was successfully emancipated from Jaid at the age of 14 and remained estranged from her father, actor John Drew Barrymore, for most of her life as well. Her mother was known for her unusual parenting (she had her institutionalized at age 13), and Drew admitted to not having much contact with her.
“It is not who I am to harbor any anger for the fact that our life together was so incredibly unorthodox,” she wrote. “I want only to say thank you to her, because I love my life and it takes every step to get to where you are, and if you are happy, then God bless the hard times it took you to get there.”
But just because she wasn’t close with her parents doesn’t mean the Blended star didn’t have role models growing up. Her godfather and director, Steven Spielberg, was mentioned several times throughout her memoir.
“To say that we loved him is the understatement of the world,” she said of her E.T. costars. “Steven loved to freak people out with food, hence the food fights. He would put food in his mouth and then open it and say, ‘See food!’ and we all howled! He would dangle clams and then slurp them up, and we would all yell ‘Gross!!!!!’ and he loved it.”
These days Drew and her husband, Will Kopelman, are parents to their two daughters Olive, 3, and Frankie, 18 months.
