Drew Barrymore opened up about not having had sex since her breakup from Will Kopelman in 2016 in a new blog post on her website. The actress, 47, revealed that she had overheard someone speaking about her and saying that she “hates sex,” and she clarified that in the years since her split, she just hasn’t had sex, because she’s been focusing on herself and her relationship with her daughters Olive, 10, and Frankie, 8.
While Drew said that she hasn’t had an intimate relationship since her divorce, she’s really enjoyed doing a bunch of self-exploration rather than pursuing other relationships or sex. “I have had the honor and a pleasure to actually work on myself and learn what parenting is, again something I was not exactly clear on growing up and I’ve had many learning curves thrown my way,” she wrote.
Raising her daughters has clearly been a serious focus and she’s in a “completely different place” in life when it comes to relationships. “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,” she wrote. “I needed to stay very celibate and honoring and in some sort of state of morning of the loss of a nuclear family that I swore I would have for my daughters and to find grace and acceptance and what our new normal of a blended family would be.”
The Wedding Singer star also opened up about wishing she’d had similar insights during her younger years, and that she had viewed “sex as an expression of love and not love itself,” but she was very happy with her outlook now. “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. I know that does not include a man nor has it for a while,” she explained. Drew also admitted that the split from Will also “rocked me to my core.”
Drew’s blog post came nearly a month after she admitted that she hadn’t had sex in six years on her talk show in September. Drew was discussing Andrew Garfield’s admission in an interview that he’d been celibate for six months to prepare for a role, but she felt like by comparison, it wasn’t too long. “What’s wrong with me that six months doesn’t seem like a very long time?” she said. “I was like, ‘Yeah, so?’”