Drew Barrymore Is Figuring It Out Live

Her radically intimate, extremely strange daytime show has become a sensation—and as much therapy for her as it is for her guests

- By E. Alex Jung. Photographs by Mark Seliger

Drew Barrymore is barreling barefoot down the hallway to make it to the studio on time. It’s a Wednesday morning in April, and this is the first of today’s two episode tapings for The Drew Barrymore Show. The screams from audience members at Studio 41 get louder as the emcee whips them into a frenzy—Drew is right there! She can hear you!—before leading them in an increasingly rapid call-and-response: “Are you ready?” “Yeah!”

Her costume designer, Lee Harris, is waiting at the threshold with chunky beige platform heels. This is a variation of her daytime uniform: a pantsuit with legs so wide you could strap a child to each calf, a silk blouse with a pussy bow, and thick pumps. “Feel that,” she tells Harris, lifting the leg of her pants to reveal smooth, hairless skin. (She finally had time to shave.) “Ooh, once in a lifetime,” he replies as he buckles her shoe. “Rossy!” she yells, and the hilarious Ross Mathews, her co-anchor on “Drew’s News,” appears by her side. As she wets a Q-tip with her tongue to do a final check on her eyeliner in the mirror, she launches into a thought about his New York apartment, which she redesigned as part of “Designed by Drew,” an interior-decorating segment on the show. “I’m questioning the mirror I got you for the dining room,” she says. The size is right, but she feels the cream-and-gold frame is fighting with the floral wallpaper. So maybe something grassy? Anyway, 20 seconds! They dive into the crowd.