When Drew Barrymore was 7 years old and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was being made, she would show up on set wearing red lipstick, Steven Spielberg said.
Steven said he worried about her, attempted to look after her, and told her to take off the lipstick, but he still “felt very helpless because (he) wasn’t her dad.”
He noted that she seemed older when she was young.
“She was staying up way past her bedtime, going to places she should have only been hearing about, and living a life at a very tender age that I think robbed her of her childhood,” he told Vulture.
Steven made every attempt to help preserve her childhood while filming E.T.</em>; for example, Drew noticed some people on set controlling E.T. and was upset because she thought the creature was real. Not wanting to ruin the magic for her, Steven kept this belief alive by telling her E.T. had assistants because he was special.
More from LittleThings: This Mom Finally Discovered Her Child's 'Behavioral Issues' Were Actually Anxiety
Drew has opened up about her difficult childhood before. She had an abusive father and started doing drugs at a young age. At age 12, she was doing cocaine and, at 13, was admitted to rehab.
Drew told Vulture that Steven is “the only person in my life to this day that ever was a parental figure.”
According to Vulture, Drew's actual father was "an abusive drunk." He left his family but would make appearances when he was low on money. Drew's memories of her father include being thrown into a wall at age 3 and having her hand held over the flame of a candle and being told that her pain was not real.
Although Drew's mother was present in her life, she wasn't exactly a positive influence, either. Attending parties with her mother, Drew tried Champagne at age 8, had beer and made out with Rob Lowe's stepbrother at age 9, and did cocaine at age 12. It was Drew's mother who sent her to rehab, but she was also the one who pulled her out of it shortly after for acting projects.
Steven Spielberg is not the only celebrity who sympathized with Drew's upbringing and wanted to help her.
Drew didn't have the best reputation, but that didn't stop people from recognizing something within her.
Director Tamra Davis was initially skeptical of Drew, but after meeting her, she told Drew she could stay in the guest room at her house. Drew ended up staying with Tamra and her then-husband for eight months.
Tamra told Vulture that Drew felt like a daughter to them, and they wanted to provide her with a place in which "she got to just focus on being an actress."
Drew doesn't want to blame others for her childhood or for how her life turned out. She rejects seeing herself as a passive victim and wants to focus more on what she did.
Her perceptions of her parents have also evolved with age. She began to empathize with her father more, telling Vulture, "I just understood what an incapable human being he was." Her relationship with and perception of her mother remains complicated.
"I didn't have parents," Drew told the Daily Mail. "I was the parent to them."
In 2015, Barrymore told The Guardian that she had a lonely childhood because of this.
Drew Barrymore previously posted about her relationship with her parents on Instagram, writing about how her upbringing was messy and imperfect but still has influenced who she is as a parent.
"I think I would have liked to have a dad who didn't look so out there. Or who stayed. Or who was capable of anything really," she wrote. "But his wildness runs through me. His gifts are here. His demons to overcome are mine to break! I love him not for who I wanted him to be, but for who he was."
"I'm not sure what anything is supposed to look like," she continued, "but I do know this…both my parents have played a major role in who I am as a parent. And none of it looks perfect. But it functions with so much love. And togetherness. And availability."
