Child Stars Discuss Drug Abuse From A Young Age
It’s something of an open secret that child stars often have a rough time in Hollywood, and what they endure in those early years is often enough to derail their careers as they get older. And even the child stars who manage to transition into successful adult performers often must deal with the emotional scars and trauma of their unique upbringing.
Now, the fittingly titled documentary Child Star features a conversation where Drew Barrymore admits to host Demi Lovato that she “used to get high with my mom’s friend at like 10.”
Drew Barrymore High As A Child
This disturbing revelation came about because Lovato asked the other woman a very blunt question: “How old were you when you were first given something?”
After Drew Barrymore responded that she was getting high at age 10, she reflected on how she had a very different perspective on what her mother was doing then than she does now.
“I thought she was so cool, and she would give weed to me and her son.”
Taking Responsibility
At this point, the conversation turned introspective and a tad contradictory. Drew Barrymore admits that now that she has a 10-year-old daughter of her own, the prospect of offering illicit substances to her child is “unfathomable.”
At the same time, she is firm about taking responsibility for her own childhood drug abuse. “Those were all my actions, those were my reactions,” she said.
A Coping Mechanism
Despite her young age at the time, Drew Barrymore describes her drug abuse in terms that many adults can relate to: “That was my coping mechanism.”
These days, she is a very different person, and one of the hallmarks of her adult life is that “I’m very accountable, I don’t blame other people.”
Therefore, while many would be quick to blame her mother for offering her drugs in the first place, the E.T. star is equally quick to point out that she ultimately made the decision to take anything that was offered.
Right To Drugs
Demi Lovato is running the show throughout the documentary, and Drew Barrymore isn’t the only former child star she talked to about drug abuse at an early age.
For example, she interviewed Christina Ricci, someone perhaps best known to genre fans for playing Wednesday Addams years before Jenna Ortega was even born.
Sadly, Ricci’s experience mirrors that of Barrymore’s: she said that she “immediately went right to drugs and alcohol in my teens” after being cast in Mermaids at the age of 10, further noting that “I don’t remember feeling like there was any other way to be happy.”
Other Child Star Interviews
Child Star features interviews with other major figures, including Raven-Symoné and Jojo Siwa, but arguably none can speak to these awful childhood experiences more than Drew Barrymore.
She previously described herself as “a walking cautionary tale” and believes that her effort to stop drinking is one of the best ways she has honored her famous family name “because we have all been such hedonists.”
The star has been very vocal about her own experiences and struggles with substances over the years, which has gone a long way toward removing the stigma around a subject often considered taboo.
Drew Barrymore A Success Story
In addition to being so public about her struggles, Drew Barrymore is a genuine success story: she escaped her childhood of drug abuse and became a beloved movie star, and she is still very much in the limelight as the host of a very successful talk show.
She wants to be very accountable for her previous failures, but that works both ways, and we hope she is fully proud of her amazing success. After all, it’s the kind of success her childhood friend from the stars might remind her is worth phoning home about.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
