The runaway success of 'The Drew Barrymore Show'

(Image credit: Bravo / Contributor / Getty Images)

published 7 June 2023

A wave of daytime talk shows is thriving in the age of streaming platforms and ushering in a new era. Drew Barrymore's eponymous television show stands out among the bunch, becoming what The A.V. Club called "TV's most viral talk show." Barrymore is quickly becoming a household name for something other than being an actor, and "the attention comes as much — if not more — from online audiences as from those in front of their TV," The A.V. Club added.

Clips from "The Drew Barrymore Show" are spreading like wildfire across social media platforms, and her audience has significantly grown since she began in an empty studio during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. After spending a lifetime in the limelight as one of Hollywood's most renowned child actors, Barrymore is making waves for being candid about herself and getting other celebrities to do so. "Her radically intimate daytime show is as much therapy for her as it is for her guests," E. Alex Jung wrote in Vulture.

Barrymore made her Hollywood debut as a seven-year-old in the blockbuster classic "E.T." and quickly became known as one of the most famous child actors ever. The grandchild of acclaimed actor John Barrymore, she was no stranger to being in the spotlight, but the pressure of superstardom would cause some bumps in the road. After a stint in rehab at age 13 and emancipation from her parents, her reputation in the industry suffered. But Barrymore eventually overcame "her adolescent humiliation with a redemption arc as America's rom-com sweetheart," Jung continued in Vulture.

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Some had doubts when Barrymore first jumped into her new role as a daytime talk show host. "We have been told we were DOA — dead on arrival — almost every year by higher-ups," Barrymore told Jung. "The show spoke to us odd birds, but it wasn't necessarily speaking to a commercial audience." Now in its third season, the show has become the fastest-growing talk show, with a 65% increase in viewership over the past three years, per the Soap Opera Network.

The success of the show and the viral interest in her celebrity interview segments have "everything to do with who Drew Barrymore is as a person, a personality and a symbol," Drew Gillis wrote for The A.V. Club. "Drew Barrymore is Hollywood, and there's no convincing anyone otherwise. While other current talk show hosts "can fall back on a folksy humble-roots narrative," Drew comes from a family known for showbiz. Because of this, her interviews "transcend beyond the typical talk show fodder because it feels like you're watching two famous people do something authentic together."

The audience seems taken with her interview style, "that is, the type of drunken conversation you'd have with a girl you just met in the bathroom of a club at 2 a.m. on a Saturday night," Georgia Aspinall mused in Grazia. Barrymore is quickly "becoming a staple of daytime TV" by "proving to the world that celebrity interviews can be kind, raw, vulnerable and endearing all at the same time," she continued.

Her unique celebrity interviews are not the only thing that makes "The Drew Barrymore Show" stand out. Gillis found it surprising "how little of the show is actually devoted to these interviews and how much is simply "Drew Barrymore doing things." In addition to the interviews, Barrymore fills the rest of the hourlong episodes with cooking segments, interacting with the audience or covering current events in her "Drew's News" segment. During a recent segment, she showed off her work as a guest editor for The Week Junior. Regardless of what she's doing, Barrymore leaves an impression audiences love. "She is a movie star, after all, and the star quality is still present even when she's on camera alone," Gillis said.

Theara Coleman has worked as a staff writer at The Week since September 2022. She frequently writes about technology, education, literature and general news. She was previously a contributing writer and assistant editor at Honeysuckle Magazine, where she covered racial politics and cannabis industry news.