Hollywood star Drew Barrymore recently opened up about her fears surrounding death, describing the thought of it as “very scary.”
In a conversation with Brad Falchuk, whose Netflix series, Famous Last Words, features interviews with prominent figures, Barrymore expressed her deep apprehension. “My death is a very, very scary, infinite black void. And there’s no way I’m looking forward to that,” she shared on her self-titled talk show.
Reflecting on her thoughts during a friend’s wedding, she questioned, “Why is my death a big, black infinite room? Why is it such an undesirable, dark place? I’m not a dark person. What if I change that room into a room of the brightest lights, cosmos, and infinite beauty that’s so breathtaking I can’t even begin to imagine it?”
Barrymore acknowledged that her fear has been crippling and noted, “I’ve been on this earth with so much fear — about a subject and an entity that we will all meet eventually. So why am I living like this?”
She hopes to approach the end of her life with peace, expressing a desire for gratitude for the life she’s lived rather than fear and regret. “I want to be meeting it with a ‘I knew I would meet you someday and I’ve looked forward to it. Not in a way that I wanted it a day or a minute sooner than it was coming, but that I’m not meeting you, not okay with meeting you, because you’re coming no matter what,” she explained.
Barrymore’s fear of death intensified after becoming a mother to her daughters, Olive, now 13, and Frankie, 11. She shared, “I think the only reason I don’t want to leave this earth is because of my kids. They’ve raised the stakes. My life was, like, Meh! Cool! Whatever! And then they came along and now I’m afraid of death. Now I don’t want to leave them, even though at one point I’m going to have to anyway.”