“The Drew Barrymore Show” was recently picked up for two more seasons, a feat that isn’t a guarantee in the talk show industry — but its host knows she has a habit that could rub some the wrong way. While speaking with “Entertainment Tonight” correspondent Danny Directo, Barrymore wryly noted that going forward, she will “try to practice physical distance, which is not my strong point.”
Barrymore’s show launched in September 2020 in the throes of the Covid-19 pandemic, something she’s said was “a tremendous risk.” While joking about her difficulty giving people their space, and how infamously close and physical she frequently gets with guests, she half-jokingly noted, “Do you know how hard the pandemic was for me? I was alone in a studio by myself, I like to be around people!”
But Directo said that the closeness is his favorite part, because it’s genuine, drawing a retort from a mortified Barrymore, “Oh god.”
“Not everyone’s favorite, but I’m sorry to those people,” Barrymore said of her unorthodox interview style. “Entertainment Tonight” shared a clip of her holding hands with Oprah Winfrey in an interview, and Barrymore is known to often put her feet up on the couch and move in close with her guests.
One interview she gave that went viral was Barrymore telling Kamala Harris that, as she is for her stepchildren, Harris needed to be a “Momala” for the nation. It was perhaps a prescient interview, as it came before Harris began her run for the presidency — though the interview drew critique from some haters, particularly conservative host Megyn Kelly.
Launching during the pandemic “led to the uncertainty, but it also led to the possibilities,” Barrymore told “Entertainment Tonight,” “and if we had not been given that chance, that unorthodox timing, we would not be here today. And so sometimes it is good to take risks or do things that don’t seem to make sense or don’t seem like the right timing.”
Barrymore underlined that the two-year pick-up is the show’s first time getting two seasons at once. “I can’t believe it. I’m so excited because I just want to stress how rare this is and how much… if you’re lucky enough to be on a show, it needs runway, it needs time, and a lot don’t get there, and we were not likely to get there.”
“And I always think that when good things happen, you should talk about that it wasn’t just easy, it wasn’t just handed. We had a lot of years of uncertainty and so this feels all the more delicious because of that.”
“Most of the time, it’s not the right time or you think it’s not the right time. But if you get tasked with something, you figure it out. And I mean, most women, they’re like, it’s never the right time and yet we make it work.”
You can watch the full interview with Drew Barrymore in the video above.
