Drew Barrymore explains why she made the controversial decision to resume production on her talk show amid the ongoing Writers Guild strike, telling critics in a new video that there’s “nothing I can do or say right now” to resume production without their pickets Authors “OK.”
In a video statement posted to her Instagram on Friday (below), Barrymore reiterated CBS Media Ventures’ previous claim that The Drew Barrymore Show would return in “compliance” with the WGA’s strike rules. This is despite continued backlash from union members and the union itself, which demonstrated outside the CBS Broadcast Center in New York as tapings resumed this week.
“I certainly couldn’t have expected this level of attention,” says the actress, producer and talk show host, explaining her decision. “We will not break any rules and will follow them. I wanted to do this because, like I said, it’s bigger than me and other people’s jobs are at stake.”
The actress and host denied that a “PR” machine was behind the decision to continue the show without her WGA writers. Her video comes a day after the WGA and AMPTP publicly said they were planning a meeting next week. (The studios have not returned to negotiations with SAG-AFTRA, which is also on strike and has a different contract than the one covering Barrymore’s talk show.)
“I don’t know exactly what to say because sometimes when things are so difficult, it’s difficult to make decisions from that point of view. So all I can say is that I wanted to take responsibility and now I don’t have a PR machine behind it. My decision to come back to the show – I didn’t want to hide behind people,” she said. “I’m not going to dress this up with bells and whistles, publicists and corporate rhetoric. I’m just going to stand out there and accept and take responsibility.”
CBS Media Ventures, which produces and distributes The Drew Barrymore Show, is part of Paramount Global, one of the media companies against which writers are striking. Some daytime talk shows, including Barrymore’s, employ WGA writers, although typically not as many as late-night shows or scripted series. Two other WGA-covered shows, CBS’ “The Talk” and the Warner Bros.-distributed Jennifer Hudson Show, will also return on Sept. 18, with picketing likely taking place outside both. ABC’s “The View” aired (and was protested) throughout the writers’ strike, although the network stated that no one was performing the duties of the two WGA writers it had on staff before the walkout.
Barrymore noted that the reason for the return was based in part on her and the show’s experiences during the pandemic.
“Since going live in a pandemic, I just wanted to make a show that was there for people in sensitive times, and I was weighing the scales and thinking about whether we could do it during a global pandemic and everything the world is experiencing leading up to 2020 “We could move on.” “Why should that sideline us?” she remarked. “So I just want to put one foot in front of the other and make a show that’s there for people regardless of anything else that’s going on in the world, because then I think we all need something that wants to be there and is very realistic.” realistic times.”
Rick Porter contributed to this story.