Michael Douglas has revealed he first met Drew Barrymore when she was 11 years old, while she was serving tables at a restaurant.
The Basic Instinct star, 80, discussed the encounter on Wednesday night’s episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, remembering the time the actor served him at an eatery called Columbus in the early Eighties.
“It was this real hot restaurant – the hot spot up in the Upper West Side on Columbus Avenue,” Douglas explained. “And we’re heading there one night, and this waitress comes over to serve me, and it’s this 11-year-old young lady here.”
Douglas, who said he thought Barrymore was at least 14 at the time, recalled her saying, “‘Hi, can I help you please?’”
“And I said, ‘Well, is it past your bedtime?’” Douglas said, adding that Barrymore was “incredible.”
Barrymore remembered the anecdote and said that when she was younger, she “didn’t really have family.”
The presenter’s career began early, when she appeared in a TV commercial for dog food at just 11 months old. She became a household name aged seven when she starred in Steven Spielberg’s hit 1982 classic, ET the Extra-Terrestrial.
Aged 11, Barrymore began going to New York nightclubs and dealt with alcohol and drug addiction.
Barrymore’s parents, Jaid Barrymore and the late John Barrymore, divorced in 1984, when their daughter was nine years old. Aged 14, Barrymore emancipated herself from her parents, which was a decision she made after a two-year stay at a drug rehabilitation centre.
“I was out running around, waitressing and clubbing – working,” she told Douglas. “Having the best time ever, by the way. Best time. But then you get older and you’re like, ‘What life am I looking to build and be a part of?’”
Barrymore explained that many of her relatives had died while she was young, but she always wanted to honour her family.
Speaking to The Guardian in 2015, Barrymore said that the lowest point of her life was when she was aged 13.
“Just knowing that I really was alone. And it felt… terrible,” she said. “It was a really rebellious time. I would run off. I was very, very angry.”
“My life was not normal,” she said. “I was not a kid in school with normal circumstances. There was something very abnormal, and I needed some severe shift.”
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