The actress said that, at age 10, comments about her body and the need to fit into unfair beauty standards “had been going on for a few years at this point.”

Drew Barrymore tears up recalling people saying that she was ‘too heavy’ at age 10: ‘Breaks my heart’

The actress said that, at age 10, comments about her body and the need to fit into unfair beauty standards "had been going on for a few years at this point."

By Emlyn Travis

Emlyn Travis is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2022. Her work has previously appeared on MTV News, Teen Vogue, and *NME*.

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January 14, 2026 1:02 p.m. ET

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Drew Barrymore hosts 'The Drew Barrymore Show'; Drew Barrymore in 1985. Credit:

The Drew Barrymore Show; Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty

Drew Barrymore is reflecting on the unfair beauty standards that were imposed upon her as a young child. **

The Golden Globe-winning actress, who made her screen debut at age 4, teared up as she gazed upon a photo of her 10-year-old self and recalled being told that she was “too heavy” and didn’t “look how you did in *E.T.” *at the time. **

“This picture… It just breaks my heart,” Barrymore said on Wednesday’s episode of *The Drew Barrymore Show*. “I was 10 years old and I just was told by everybody, ‘You don’t look how you did in* E.T. *You’re too heavy. You’re not blonde enough. You’re not old enough. You’re too young. You’re not tall.’ And everybody just started getting involved in the way I looked.”

Barrymore at age 10.

Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty

When pal Valerie Bertinelli expressed her dismay that Barrymore was hearing such negative comments at age 10, the host remarked, “Oh, and it had been going on for a few years at this point.”**

The teary-eyed Barrymore specifically spotlighted her younger self’s eyes. “It’s like, I don’t know what I’m supposed to be for other people,” she said of her gaze in the photograph. “And you don’t know yourself at 10. What I’m so relieved about now is that it’s four decades later, I’m 50… I do know what’s important now, and the look in my eyes is so clear.”

Jack Black and Paul Rudd fan Drew Barrymore after she experiences hot flash mid-interview

Sean Hayes and Drew Barrymore peed in front of each other when they first met

She noted that it’s “so nice to know that no matter how low it gets, or how much pressure we feel, or how unproud of ourselves, or how we are not pleasing to someone else, or we’re not fitting into some mold someone created for us… that real, true happiness is just this choice we make.” **

But, Barrymore admitted, it’s by no means an easy one. “It’s a battle and a beautiful, internal war that we fight on the front lines, day in and day out, to get to a place where we can actually say this sentence and believe it, which is: ‘I deserve happiness,’” she said. “That, if it takes you a long time to figure out, it’s okay. As long as we learn it at some point.”**

The* Wedding Singer* star also took a moment to speak directly to younger viewers who may feel the same way that she did as a child. **

“If you feel pressure to be a certain way, you are not alone. I have been there with you and it is not a comfortable feeling,” she said. “Somehow, some way, on the other side of that is like… kind of adulthood, and a personal freedom, and a desire to stop pleasing everybody else and start realizing what it’s gonna take for you to feel good about yourself no matter what you look like or feel like.”

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Barrymore went on to remind the audience that “Everyone’s gonna go through a physical, spiritual identity crisis” in their lives. “It’s gonna hit you at some point and I’m really glad that I got it out of the way early,” she said. “It crept up again at 40, I thought I’d seen everything… but I pulled myself out of that one, too. The person you have to rely on is yourself. It’s what you can control.”

She then shared another a pearl of wisdom when it comes to negative criticism. “I didn’t know this then, I know it now: you don’t have to take it in,” she stated firmly. “You have an absolute boundary that you can lay down and say, ‘You are not allowed to eat away at my happiness. Only I get to do that! So, sorry, but I’m no longer anyone else’s. I’m just mine and me.’”

Drew Barrymore, Valerie Bertinelli, and Ross Mathews on 'The Drew Barrymore Show'.

The Drew Barrymore Show

Barrymore acknowledged that it “took four decades” to reach this place in her life, but that the girl in the photograph is now doing okay. She added, “And it’s so scary when you don’t know if you’re going to be okay — and, again, that will crop up several times in your life — but it will be if you have the ability to rescue yourself.”**

Looking back at the photograph, Barrymore said that she’s “glad” to see it and realize that she’s “not broken” anymore. “And if you break, you will fix yourself!” she exclaimed. “Everyone is deserving of that happiness!” **

Barrymore also noted that it’s equally important to share that message with others who may be struggling once you’ve learned it.  **

“You can not only rescue yourself, but you still have a lot of room to help rescue other people, for them to rescue themselves,” she concluded. “So it’s circular, it’s giving, it’s owning, and it’s maybe, I dare say… healthy?”

*The Drew Barrymore Show *airs weekdays on CBS.

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Source: “EW Talk”