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Drew Barrymore: I’m the ‘Common Denominator’ in My Failed Relationships

Drew Barrymore
Good Housekeeping celebrates May cover girl Drew Barrymore at Hearst Tower in NYC.Michael Simon/startraksphoto.com

Brutally honest! Drew Barrymore’s best friend and film business partner Nancy Juvonen doesn’t hold back when it comes to love advice. The Santa Clarita Diet actress joked about Juvonen telling her like it is during a Q&A with Good Housekeeping’s editor in chief, Jane Francisco, in NYC on Tuesday, April 19.

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“I’d go to her about relationship advice and I’d be like, ‘I just don’t understand why this keeps happening! … I mean, this is exactly what happened last time. It’s just like every single time,'” Barrymore said, pretending to cry.

The former child star, 41, kept vague on the details, but she did find humor in Juvonen’s response. “She’s like, ‘I did notice that there’s a common denominator problem in all of your relationships and I’d like to identify it right now,'” Barrymore said. “And I’m like, ‘What!? I’ve been waiting! Show me the light!’ She’s like, ‘It’s you.'” (Barrymore and Juvonen, Jimmy Fallon’s wife, founded Flower Films back in 1995.)

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As previously reported, Barrymore has split from her husband, Will Kopelman, after nearly four years of marriage. The estranged couple, who are parents of daughters Olive, 3, and Frankie, 2, announced the news earlier this month.

Drew Barrymore and Nancy Juvonen
Drew Barrymore and Nancy Juvonen on Sept. 29, 2009. Todd Williamson/WireImage

“Sadly, our family is separating legally, although we do not feel this takes away from us being a family,” Barrymore and the art consultant said in a joint statement to Us Weekly. “Divorce might make one feel like a failure, but eventually you start to find grace in the idea that life goes on.”

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Barrymore has appreciated Juvonen’s tips and outlook on life for years. In fact, even a magnet that she read on Juvonen’s fridge back in the mid-’90s struck a chord with her. What did it say? “Happiness is a choice.”

Drew Barrymore and Will Kopelman
Will Kopelman and Drew Barrymore at the Rainbow Room on Oct. 25, 2015. Neilson Barnard/Getty Images

“I used to think, What a girl after my own heart. Happiness is a choice. I love it. I am such a hippie and she is too,” Barrymore told Francisco. “And then I called her 22 years later, crying, and I was 39 and she’s fortysomething … and said, ‘Oh my God, Nan, I just got it … that happiness is a choice. It wasn’t the word happiness, it was the word choice. It’s that you choose to be happy all of the time. That’s what it is.'”

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Plenty of things make Barrymore happy these days. To list a few: Her Barrymore Wines company, being a CEO for the Flower Beauty makeup line and her little girls.

“I like working hard. And now, as a mom, I get excited about that because I carved so much time to be a mother that I really am proud when I do show my daughters that I have to go off to work because I want them to have a good work ethic instilled in them,” she said. “Work is important, being motivated is important and taking pleasure in it is important. Don’t walk out with an eye roll or an apology for wanting to create things and make your dreams come true.”

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