Drew Barrymore Says She ‘Truly Lost Everything’ at 13: ‘Nobody Wanted to Work with Me’

• Drew Barrymore responded to a Drew Barrymore Show audience member’s question about her most valuable life lesson
• She reflected on losing “everything” around age 13, when she was having “a real car crash of a life”
• What she learned from that experience was to be grateful and take no opportunities for granted

Drew Barrymore has plenty to say about life’s most valuable lessons.

As she told her audience at The Drew Barrymore Show on Wednesday, it was having “a real car crash of a life” around age 13 that taught her the mentality she maintains to this day: “Always be grateful.”

“Everyone has good moments and bad moments, but when I was 13, I truly lost everything. From my own doing,” Barrymore, 50, said in response to an audience member asking for her biggest life lesson.

“The most valuable lesson I’ve learned is that nothing is a given,” she said. “Don’t take anything for granted. Don’t be jaded, be appreciative and work really hard.”

The Charlie’s Angels star, who is the daughter of actor John Drew Barrymore, got her start as a child star and broke out in 1982’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, 1984’s Firestarter and more. “I’ve never stopped working since I was 11 months old, which is crazy in a sense,” she told her talk show audience. “But I love having an infallible work ethic. It’s a huge part of who I am.”

She continued, “I try to look at things as they’re opportunities. I’m lucky to have them, and I’m going to give them all of my effort because nothing is for naught. It’s all bricks, and eventually, those bricks will build a structure. And it will be tangible and sturdy and a good foundation that maybe someone else wants to be in or wants to be a part of. It all just keeps coming back to you.”

Around age 13, Barrymore said, “Nobody wanted to work with me. And I understood why, and I took responsibility for myself.”

Doing so enabled the mother of two to maintain a clear head amid the uncertainty of a Hollywood career, she continued. “So even the worst things that you think happen to you can be your best things — because if all that stuff didn’t happen, I would not be who I am.”

That experience, she added, “also told me not to regret. What good is that going to do? Our mistakes are our best teachers, and if you keep making the same mistake over and over and over again, that’s something really teachable.”

Barrymore previously opened up about being “out of control” in her teens on The Howard Stern Show, telling host Howard Stern, “I was going to clubs and not going to school and stealing my mom’s car.” It all resulted in her spending 18 months in a “full psychiatric ward,” she said at the time.