Drew Barrymore is in big trouble. The WGA strike has finally thawed after 146 days of labor strife, which means the actress’ flagship syndicated talk show, The Drew Barrymore Show, is gearing up for production. But when the program makes its return on Oct. 16, it will be doing so without three of its head writers. Chelsea White, Cristina Kinon, and Liz Koe are leaving for greener pastures, and considering Barrymore’s managerial praxis during the strike, it’s not hard to deduce why.
Basically, on Sept. 10, in a statement that has since been summarily memory-holed from her Instagram account, Barrymore announced that she would be bringing the next season of The Drew Barrymore Show back to the airwaves while her writing staff was still actively on the picket lines. You will not be surprised that this did not go over well. Like, at all. Barrymore would’ve been, by far, the biggest name in Hollywood filming writer-free episodes while all other major names in the cushy variety-show sector—Colbert, Meyers, Kimmel, and so on—remained firmly off the air, in solidarity with those who supply them with monologue jokes.
A few days later, Barrymore attempted to explain her scabbish pivot with a righteously uncomfortable video, which, yes, has also been eradicated from her social feeds. In it, Barrymore seems to express the idea that her talk show serves a palliative social good—informed by its launch during the height of the COVID pandemic—for those who need to cope during “sensitive times.”
No, for real. Check the transcript.
“I weighed the scales and thought, ‘If we could go on during a global pandemic and everything the world experienced through 2020, why would this sideline us?’ ” said Barrymore. To be clear, she is equating a virulent disease that has claimed the lives of nearly 7 million people to a labor standoff with billionaire studio executives. You can see why her writers might’ve been a little miffed.
Barrymore eventually backed off the plan, announcing, on Sept. 17, that The Drew Barrymore Show would not be filming its fourth season until a new WGA contract is signed. But that was clearly too little and too late. When the show was initially plotting a comeback, Kinon—one of the writers who has since left the show—told The Hollywood Reporter that Barrymore’s decision “sends a message that union writers are not valuable.” (Those writers also told the Reporter that they heard Barrymore was resuming production through ticket giveaways on social media. You know, instead of, like, a phone call or an email.)
For what it’s worth, relaunching The Drew Barrymore Show in the midst of a strike technically wouldn’t have been a contravention of the rules of SAG-AFTRA, of which Drew Barrymore is a member, and which is still embroiled in a labor dispute. This is because her talk show is produced under the Network Television Code, which is beholden to a separate contract—which is more grist for my theory that the bureaucratic particulars of broadcast entertainment are an enigma wrapped in a mystery. Barrymore might’ve been kicking her WGA writers to the curb, but by the letter of the law, she was free to do so.
But regardless of those technicalities, the upshot here is that Drew Barrymore—a woman who has amassed an unprecedented universal approval rating in a toxic and mercurial celebrity-obsessed culture; someone who has a legit claim to the title of America’s Sweetheart—has been thoroughly and completely owned. Her talk show is now without three of its most integral members, and she has only herself to blame. Even her most ardent stans are disappointed. One Drew Barrymore fan site announced in September that it would be going on hiatus “due to recent news.” Bleak! And yet, for some reason—in the pits of my soul—I sorta feel bad for her? Maybe it’s the backlog of empathy I’ve accrued for Barrymore from her periods of substance addiction, suicidal ideation, and well-documented family trauma. This is a woman who was famously institutionalized when she was 13 years old, and has been surprisingly resilient to PR pratfalls throughout the course of her career. (Remember when she flashed David Letterman?) So I find myself hoping that, once again, she finds a way to make amends for this massive lapse in judgment.
Let me put this more clearly: I’m not ready to live in a world where we’re all supposed to hate Drew Barrymore, OK? We’ve got to find a way out of this. Life is too short. If Shania Twain could make amends for her Trump endorsement, then anything is possible.
