During an appearance on The Ellen Degeneres Show, Drew Barrymore opened up about ending her marriage to Will Kopelman.
The 41-year-old actress, who has previously discussed her difficult childhood, admitted she never expected her marriage with Will to end. The former couple share two daughters – four-year-old Olive and two-year-old Frankie.
“It was just like my worst nightmare. I so wanted to raise kids in this ultratraditional way and do everything so the polar opposite of my experience.”
The former child star called time on her marriage after three years, and their filing was uncontested, meaning there was no dispute over custody of the children or division of their assets.
“Drew and Will both wanted the divorce done expeditiously. They didn’t want a messy divorce,” a source told Page Six at the time.
During the interview, Drew said that she and her former husband have been able to work together to co-parent their daughters in New York.
“It really is about the tone you set, and you can talk until you’re blue in the face, but kids watch what you do every single day of your life, all day long, and that behavior and that example and that love and community and honesty is just, I think, what’s making everything feel safe for my kids,” she said.
“And that’s really the intention I had as a parent — how do my kids have this incredible sense of, like, freedom inside their heart, because they know I’ve got them and their dad’s got them and the [rest of their family].”
She continued, “I got two families. I went from, like, zero to two and it’s a miracle and a blessing, and we do it in a way that I think a lot of other people are probably doing it too and sometimes, again, the road is different than what you tried to make it or what you expected and you just figure it out and figure it out with grace.”
