Drew Barrymore has been a star in Hollywood since she was a child. Now, at 49 years old, she’s lived most of her life in the spotlight, both in her films and in her personal life. Tabloids have long covered Barrymore’s love life, which has been tumultuous. Though she’s been married three times and has many exes, the vast majority of them seem to think they were lucky to date her at all.
Her last known relationship ended in 2016 after she divorced husband Will Kopelman. The former couple share two daughters. While she has said she is dating again and even on apps, she is sensitive to who she brings into her kids’ lives.
“I have two young girls and, like, I don’t want to bring people home,” she said on CBS Mornings in 2022. “I think it would take me a very long time to meet someone and get to know them before I could even ever introduce them to my daughters.”
Here’s Drew Barrymore’s dating history so far.
Corey Feldman
As teenagers, Barrymore dated fellow teen star Corey Feldman, who was riding high on the success of his films like The Goonies, Gremlins, Stand By Me, and The Lost Boys. They connected romantically on after-school special 15 and Getting Straight, according to the Los Angeles Times, when Barrymore was 14 and Feldman was 17. They were first officially out as a couple in March 1989, attending the Oscars together. They broke up in April 1990.
The former couple met up again in January 2023 on The Drew Barrymore Show and discussed how they had actually met years earlier as preteens.
“What happened was, I got a call one day. My grandmother says, ‘We got a call from Steven [Spielberg’s] office, and the little girl from E.T. wants to meet you because she’s got a crush on you,’” Feldman remembered. “Of course, neither of us drove because I was still living at my grandparents’, and you were living with your mom. And it was so cute. I remember taking you to the movies, I remember exactly which movie theater it was. We walked across the street, and you put your little hand up for me to hold. And I held your hand, and we walked across the street.”
Feldman continued, “We just stayed friends, and then it was years before we actually dated.”
Barrymore shared her memories of when they actually got together.
“We had that kind of relationship where they say, like, ‘Date your friends,’ and we were the embodiment of that,” she said. “You were so kind. You were such a safe place for me, and we always hung out with your friends. It was just a really important place for me, and the memories are so vivid.”
Balthazar Getty
Balthazar Getty, the Getty Oil heir and Lord of the Flies star, dated Barrymore when they were both 15 years old between April and September 1990.
Leland Hayward III
Leland Hayward III is the grandson of famed Hollywood agent and producer Leland Hayward. His grandfather was responsible for stage productions like Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music. In 1991, the 24-year-old got engaged to the 16-year-old, making it seem like they might blend two Hollywood dynasties. But they split before that could happen.
David Arquette
Barrymore and David Arquette have definitely been co-stars, and they’ve definitely been friends, but they seem to disagree over whether or not they ever dated. In 2014, on an episode of Watch What Happens Live, Arquette said they dated when they were “very young kids,” probably referring to 1991, when they were photographed holding hands.
“She’s just one of the sweetest, kindest people in Hollywood,” he said. “She always has been, and she always will be. She’s just a lovely, sweet person. We used to run around and just be silly.”
But, while on the Howard Stern Show, Barrymore denied they ever had a romantic relationship. In March 2018, Arquette defended his honor on PeopleTV‘s Couch Surfing, saying, “We also dated, but she denied it on Howard Stern. But, we dated, Drew!”
He laughed it off, adding, “We were really young. Maybe I didn’t ask her to go with me or something.”
Corin Nemec
Barrymore briefly dated producer, actor, and screenwriter Corin Nemec in 1992, and they were photographed at the premiere of the film Radio Flyer in February of that year.
Jamie Walters
Barrymore and actor James Walters got together in March 1992, and were engaged by June. Seventeen-year-old Barrymore was seen wearing a diamond ring and got a tattoo of Walters’ name. The 23-year-old returned the forever favor, but they broke up in in 1993.
Jeremy Thomas
Barrymore actually married her next known boyfriend when she was 19, 31-year-old Jeremy Thomas who owned the Los Angeles bar The Room. They met there, and the bar was even where they held the ceremony. They had known one another for a few years but were married on March 20, 1994, after six weeks of dating.
“She was probably a little bit underage when she first started coming to the bar. But she just fit in with everyone,” Thomas told RadarOnline.com.
“Usually people live together first and then get married,” Barrymore joked after their wedding. “I guess we’re doing it the old-fashioned way. Kind of.”
They were divorced 19 days after their marriage, though it wasn’t finalized until 1995.
In an interview with Rolling Stone that same year, she began a sentence with, “My ex-husband…” before correcting herself and adding, “Excuse me, the devil…”
In 2019, she told the Star, “I realized my mistake the day I married him.”
She later claimed he had other reasons besides love for marrying her.
“He turned out to be the biggest schmuck I’ve ever met,” she explained. “He gained everything… It was a green card situation. That’s why I couldn’t tell anybody.”
Eric Erlandson
Musician Eric Erlandson was a member of Courtney Love’s band Hole, and met Barrymore through her friendship with the lead singer. Barrymore has been very open about her struggles with addiction and the darker side of fame as a young person. She told Rolling Stone that in June 1994, she connected with Erlandson when she was sick outside of a Los Angeles club, and he stood guard. They met again two weeks later at a hotel when she happened to go to the wrong room. They then met a third time in Seattle when she was shooting the movie Mad Love. Things moved quickly from there, and they moved in together.
“I love him so much. And I have a family now from Eric, too,” she explained. “He has such a huge, amazing family. Seven kids. I never thought I’d have a sense of family until I had my own kids. I want two: a boy and a girl. My daughter will be named Ruby Daffodil.”
In an interview with L.A. Weekly, Erlandson reflected on the attention he got while dating Barrymore, saying, “I have a negative view of it—being worshiped too much. Fame is fame.”
They split in 1996.
Luke Wilson
Soon after, Barrymore started dating Luke Wilson after meeting on the set of Home Fries. They were together for two years, from 1996 to 1998.
“From the moment I saw him, I realized he was the most incredible person I’d ever been so fortunate to meet,” Barrymore said. “He’s just so wonderful to be around.”
Later, Barrymore suggested that things were more casual. Kate Hudson was dating Owen Wilson, Luke’s brother, at the same time. In 2022, Barrymore and Hudson said on her talk show that they were in an “open” relationship.
“When we first met, we were young and wild,” Barrymore said. “I was dating [Luke], but I think he was also dating other people. It was an open relationship; we were young…We’re just young, we’re having fun, we’re all playing, acting, hanging out…You’re not taking it all so seriously, and it was fun, and we had the best time.”
Tom Green
Barrymore and comedian Tom Green connected on the set of Charlie’s Angels in March 2000 and were married on July 7, 2001, in Malibu, California. The surprise wedding was attended by her co-stars Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu, as well as Courtney Love and Adam Sandler. Love’s daughter, Francis Bean, served as the flower girl for the ceremony.
The couple got through a lot of difficult moments together, including Green’s testicular cancer diagnosis and a house fire. They got divorced in December 2001, but Green has nothing but nice things to say about his ex-wife.
“Drew is a wonderful woman,” Green said in a statement. “I love her very much. I wish our marriage could have worked out. I wish her much happiness.”
Barrymore told Howard Stern, “[We] were young and kind of idiots … I didn’t know how to manage myself. I’ve always said I was a woman in the boardroom and a child in the bedroom. I could go into a studio and pitch … but I didn’t know how to handle things in my personal life.”
In 2020, they reunited on her talk show, and she said, “When you say it’s 20 years, sometimes it’s the blink of an eye and sometimes you’re like, Oh my God, we’ve lived so much in these last 20 years. You’ve had a whole life, and I’ve had a whole life, and it’s just really nice to come together and check-in and talk about it. I think the world of you. I celebrate you, and I always have, and I always will.”
Fabrizio Moretti
Fabrizio Moretti, the drummer for The Strokes, met Barrymore backstage at a festival and they started dating in 2002. They dated for five years, and Barrymore told Harper’s Bazaar in 2007, “Right now I’m in a phase of ‘I’m not even your girlfriend. I’m your best friend who is madly in love with you.’”
But when the interview hit the stands, they had broken up.
In 2009, she told W Magazine that they were “still very close.”
Justin Long
Barrymore and Justin Long were co-stars in two romcoms, He’s Just Not That Into You and Going the Distance. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2008, Long said of Barrymore, “She’s beautiful and funny…She’s the most compassionate person I’ve ever met … She smells great.”
Barrymore told Winfrey, “This relationship is great. It’s healthy, it’s productive, and it’s supportive. It’s full of humor and a lot of fun. I found a best friend.”
They broke up in 2010 after being in an on-and-off relationship for two years. As with most of her romances, they’ve remained friends. Also like many of her past romances, he recently appeared on her talk show. In 2022, Long came on to discuss their long-ago love.
“We laughed so much, like that was so much a part of our connection was that we love funny people. We enjoy laughing at all times,” Long said. “I love that we maintained our love because I know for my end it will never go away.”
Barrymore was emotional when she answered, “I feel like we’ve been through so much together too. I feel like when we used to, like, talk and FaceTime, I was always like, ‘You know, I’ve really grown up, Justin.’ I always wanted to prove what a different person I was than when we dated.”
Long answered, “You were the best.”
Will Kopelman
Barrymore was first linked to her third husband, art consultant Will Kopelman, in January 2011. A year later, they got engaged, and were married in June 2012. On September 26, 2012, their first child, Olive Barrymore Kopelman, was born. They welcomed their second, Frankie Barrymore Kopelman, on April 22, 2014.
“Honestly, I don’t know how it is for other couples, but really, I like watching him be a father,” Barrymore told People 2015. “I know everyone says you’re supposed to put your coupledom first. But I really love it being all about the kids. Maybe that’s my compensating for not having parents myself or a childhood but right now, the focus is about how we’re figuring things out as parents.”
A year later, in April 2016, Barrymore filed for divorce from Kopelman.
“They’ve been having some difficulties, but they remain close for the sake of their kids,” an insider told Page Six. “Drew had a very rebellious and wild childhood, with no family around her, and while she is a very different person now and a great mother, some of that can stay with you.”
“They’ve had marriage issues for a while,” another source told People at the time, adding that he was “devastated.”
Barrymore had stressed in the past that she and Kopelman have to “compromise on a lot of things,” in an interview with Us Weekly.
“We know each other very well and know what our likes and dislikes are, and what works and doesn’t work,” she explained. “Small things like rushing to the airport can be someone else’s nightmare and we have to change for the better to grow as a couple.”
In a statement, the pair said, “Sadly our family is separating legally, although we do not feel this takes away from us being a family. Divorce might make one feel like a failure, but eventually you start to find grace in the idea that life goes on. Our children are our universe, and we look forward to living the rest of our lives with them as the first priority.”
They went on to have a co-parenting relationship. Five years later, Kopelman married Vogue’s director of fashion development, Alexandra Michler. On Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert, Barrymore talked about her ex-husband moving on.
“He just got remarried actually last week to this most amazing woman,” Barrymore told Shepard. “This incredible woman Allie, and I just feel like I won the lottery with her, like, I really did. I feel like I’m lucky that there’s this new beautiful soul that came into our lives.”
She explained she does not “try to be her best friend,” although Michler “knows that I absolutely worship the ground she walks on, and I’m her biggest cheerleader.”
“But I give them space,” she continued. “We hang out. We do dinners with all the kids, birthdays. We might take a trip together, we’re finding our way in a beautiful, slow, respectful manner.”