Originally appeared on E! Online
Drew Barrymore is reflecting on her divorce from Will Kopelman.
Nearly nine years after the talk show host finalized her divorce, she shared insight into the toll the breakup took on her family at the time.
“My dream family was falling apart and I didn’t know how to put one foot in front of the other,” Barrymore said in the February/March issue of AARP The Magazine. “I had grown up so fast but now I didn’t know what age to feel—I just knew that my life was heavy, and painful and sad—and I sat in that for a while.”
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But upon allowing herself to feel her emotions, the "Charlie’s Angels" actress — who shares daughters Olive, 12, and Frankie, 10, with the art director—was able to push forward and focus on her little girls.
“Eventually, thank goodness, I lifted myself out of it,” she continued. “I had two kids and I had to figure it out.”
PHOTOS: 20 Fascinating Facts About Drew Barrymore
And Barrymore, who was emancipated from her parents at 14, was determined to be the best mom she could be — even if that meant going solo for a while.
“I was in my early 40s, and not learning how to be my own healthy, independent individual, how to be the parent I dream to be,” she recalled. “Being other people doesn’t help me figure that out right now. And the long hours of doing films were hours I wouldn’t have with my kids. I wasn’t going to do that.”
When it comes to the end of Barrymore and Kopelman’s four-year marriage, Barrymore expressed that it didn’t just stem from one big tribulation.
"There was no scandal," she told People in 2022. "Nothing went wrong, which is cleaner, but makes it harder and more confusing because there isn't the thing to point to. We tried so hard to make it work."
Indeed, the 49-year-old admitted that the years following her divorce proved to be a very difficult chapter in her life.
"[A friend] said to me, 'Divorce is the death of a dream,'” Barrymore added. “That's exactly what it feels like, something so final you can't get it back.”
But despite the divorce, the 50 First Dates actress maintained an amicable relationship with Kopelman, who went on to marry Alexandra Michler in August 2021. After all, they are still co-parenting their two beautiful daughters.
"You're never never not together if you have children," Barrymore said on a 2022 episode of The Drew Barrymore Show. "All the modern family and the exes aside, you're just parents. That's what makes sense to me....I say this, just trying to put one foot in front of the other with a lot of love and good intentions: High road, baby. Less traffic."
As for when the "E.T. star" plans to put herself out there again? Barrymore has made it clear that dating isn’t really a priority.
“Last December I was single,” she wrote over a December TikTok video. “This December I’m still single. Hope that helps!”