Drew Barrymore Emancipated

Barrymore lived quite the rollercoaster in the early 1990s. She and her mother partied at Studio 54 together, she rarely went to school, and she already had alcohol and drug problems as a minor. She said that the only comfort she found was in acting, so she decided to emancipate herself at 14 years old in order to get more roles. She wrote in her book that she wasn’t employable at the time and wanted to start her life over.

Barrymore moved into a Westwood apartment and got a job at a coffeehouse, where she sometimes even had to clean toilets. She admitted that she wasn’t great at her job and felt like a loser, but it helped her build character and eventually break out on her own.