How Joanna Gaines Inspired Drew Barrymore During Her Divorce

Drew Barrymore is getting real about marriage and intimacy, and we are here for it. The "Charlie's Angels" star recently wrote a very personal essay where she revealed that, following her divorce from art consultant Will Kopelman in 2016, she hasn't been able to be in an intimate relationship. "I'm not a person who needs sex and has to go out there and engage with people on that level," she wrote in her blog. The couple share two girls, 10-year-old Olive and 8-year-old Frankie, and have an amicable co-parenting relationship (via Hello!). 

Barrymore explained in the blog post that her attention has gone to parenting and personal growth as she mourned "the loss of a nuclear family that I swore I would have for my daughters." According to the 47-year-old actress, splitting up from her husband of four years was one of the toughest moments in her life. "I thought I had seen it all and been through the worst, and when I got divorced with kids, that was the worst," Barrymore told Uninterrupted's "The Shop" series. 

In a recent episode of her namesake show, Drew Barrymore sat down with the co-founder of the Magnolia Network, Joanna Gaines, and discussed how she coped with her divorce. The "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" actress revealed that Gaines had a huge impact on that process. "I would watch you on 'Fixer Upper,' I don't know, six, seven years ago, and I was going through such a major life change. I was separating, I was taking my family from California to New York," Barrymore told Gaines. "I would watch you and you gave me the courage to believe that I could take my life in a new direction because I love design and I love homemaking and realized this is what I wanted to pour myself into [...] a lot of my journey has been engaging with people — so could I find a path to that? And you're the one who made me believe I could."

Gaines got emotional and expressed how honored she was by Barrymore's comment and how inspired she was by her too. "The second we stepped into this building, you could feel the joy of just the people around you, your spirit," the Magnolia Network co-founder told the actress. "You've landed in a really beautiful place."

This isn't the only time Barrymore has shown her love for the "Fixer Upper" star. Back in August, Barrymore shared a cover photo of Gaines roller skating on Instagram with the caption, "[Joanna Gaines] you are my hero. This cover, just like you, makes the world a more joyful and cool place."