Aurora Starchild
A man who is practicing acting like a Jesuit Priest and Drew Barrymore are sitting in a room together. Who is more likely to be celibate? It turns out, Drew Barrymore. She hasn’t had sex since her split from ex-husband Will Kopelman in 2016. She just explained why in a new blog post.
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“Sex Is Not Love”
It comes down to a shift in Barrymore’s priorities. That, and coming to a personal realization that “Sex is not love… It is the expression of love.”
“I am just in a completely different place in my life and maybe in the near future I will get into a relationship… but it simply hasn’t been my priority. So, I’m not a person who needs sex and has to go out there and engage with people on that level. I am someone who is deeply committed to fostering how young girls, my daughters, and myself as a woman, are supposed to function in this world.”
Drew Barrymore
Drew Admitted to Going Without Sex for “Years”
The blog post was a response to a misconception amongst her fans that she “hates sex.” Barrymore had previously hosted actor Andrew Garfield on The Drew Barrymore Show. Garfield played a Jesuit Priest in the 2016 Martin Scorsese film, Silence. Barrymore asked Garfield how he prepared for the role, and he responded that one of his methods was to abstain from sex for 6 months.
One of the show’s contributors, Ross Matthews, then said that he’d abstained from sex for his entire 20s.
Barrymore then agreed, “I was like, ‘What’s wrong with me that six months doesn’t seem like a very long time?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, so?’
“I mean we buried the lead there, that’s the headline, ‘Drew can go six months, no big deal,'” said Matthews.
Barrymore clarified, “Oh, years.”
The conversation continued to discuss what exactly method acting is and isn’t. But Barrymore had left her fans thinking that she hated sex. Sex is a normal part of life for many people — it makes the world go round in a sense. So, how could someone possibly go for years without sex and think ‘no big deal’”
That’s what Barrymore was clarifying.
“Rebels Who Love” — Drew Barrymore’s Blog Post
Drew Barrymore definitely does not “hate sex.” See the Twitter post above where she is sharing her current profile photo on the dating app she uses. But she has abstained from sex since her divorce, and that’s what she wants to clarify.
In her blog post, Barrymore opened up about how she’s grown as a person and sees sex differently now than she did before. It’s not that she doesn’t like sex. She does. She just doesn’t need it as a form of validation, and she would prefer to find real love first and have sex come second.
“At nearly 48 I have very different feelings about intimacy than I did growing up,” wrote Barrymore. “I did not have role model parents and I engaged with people in grown-up ways since a tender age! I was looking for companionship! validation! excitement! pleasure! hedonism! fun! And adventures!! Now, because I can’t get in the time machine and change my history. So, I now choose to look at it through a positive lens, which is that I lived! I lived a very rich full life. However, after two kids and a separation from their father, that has made me cautious, I have had the pleasure of shifting my focus when it comes to love for myself and my two daughters.”
Divorce “Rocked” Her to Her “Core”
Barrymore elaborated on the importance of ensuring her children’s well-being and how her divorce “rocked me to my core.” Being celibate and placing her children as her top priority also meant putting romantic relationships on the back burner. Nothing wrong with that at all. She has two daughters, Olive (10) and Frankie (8), who she shares with her ex.
“I wish for everyone that they find out what makes them feel good about themselves and seek that!” Barrymore concluded. “And if and when they happen to find what makes them feel bad about themselves, that they pay attention and avoid it. Even abstain from inviting in emotions that do not lead to self respect. And to be passionate and protective in the fact that we all deserve love! and we should all give love! but love and sex are simply not the same thing.”
Drew Barrymore Had a Really Tough Time With Her Breakup
Barrymore split from husband Will Kopelman in 2016. She told Sunday’s Today with Willy Geist that she took the divorce “really hard.”
“At first … I couldn’t make sense of it,” she admitted. “And if I even spoke about it, I would’ve just become a blubbering — I really did not take divorce well. I took it really hard. Even now, I’m just like, oh, it’s such a painful thing.”
She elaborated that while she and Kopelman, as well as Kopelman’s family, have made the decision to put their daughters’ wellbeing first, the family breakup shook her deeply.
“It’s like, I don’t think I’ve recovered from that,” said Barrymore. “I don’t know how to open that up again. It’s like something closed, and it stayed closed. I think I’m equally as scared to find love again as I would be as if it never happened.”
Barrymore has every right to feel this way. Kopelman was her third marriage, but they had children together. She didn’t have children before him, and divorces ultimately do affect entire families.
Prior to Kopelman, Barrymore was married to Jeremy Thomas from 1994 to 1995. She was also married to Tom Green from 2001 to 2002. Will Kopelman was her longest marriage, lasting from 2012 to 2016.
