During this morning’s episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, Drew Barrymore and Brooke Shields talked about how scary it was for them to be interviewed by Barbara Walters. Barrymore said she loves Walters even though her own interview with him was awkward, but Shields remembered feeling “so taken advantage of” when she talked to Walters.
The conversation started at the Drew’s News desk, where Shields joined Barrymore and Ross Mathews to talk about an uncomfortable interview she had when she was just 10 years old. The actress said that an unnamed woman journalist kept asking her the same question until Sheilds finally said, “I don’t think you want to know my answer because you keep asking me the same question, and this is my answer, but I can’t change it because it’s my truth.”
Barrymore asked if the interviewer was Walters. Shields said that it wasn’t Walters, but added that talking to Walter was “another fiasco.” In 1981, when she was just a teenager, the Blue Lagoon actress sat down with Walters for a controversial interview.
“She asked me my height and weight and then told me to stand up. “I stood up, and she was talking about how she was like this little girl,” she said. “I thought, ‘This doesn’t make sense. I have no idea what this is. But I was good and just smiled. I felt like I was used in so many ways.”
Bad move, Barbara.
Barrymore then talked about how, when she was in her early 20s, Walters had talked to her. Before she told her story, she made sure to tell the audience that she looks up to Walters and has never thought of her “in a negative light.” Still, she said that Walters “would not give up” when they were talking.
“She said, ‘Tell me about the drugs and alcohol, about your mother, and about being bisexual,’” Barrymore said. “I kept telling Barbara, ‘You know, I’m really doing well,’” she said. And that happened five, six, or seven times.”
The Drew Barrymore Show comes on at 9:30 a.m. ET on weekdays.