Drew Barrymore detailed her “secret exchanges” with good pal Britney Spears during Monday night’s broadcast of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”
“I made friends with Britney about a year and a half ago, and we sort of had some secret exchanges. And I know that sounds nefarious. It was exactly the opposite,” Barrymore, 47, said.
“It was very connective and honest and we’ve both been through a lot of things.”
The daytime talk show host went on to say that she and Spears, 40, discussed their “parallels” and “unique circumstances” coming of age in the entertainment industry.
“The feelings of growing up, struggling, all the stuff that we’ve both gone through is something that I felt connected to her [about],” Barrymore elaborated. “And I’m not a real reach-out kind of person, you know, I’m not Hollywood Bob, I’m not slick.”
The “Charlie’s Angels” star said she was “compelled” to get in touch with Spears because of the “humanity in what she was going through, trying to get her freedom back” as the singer fought to end her controversial conservatorship. (It was finally terminated in November 2021.)
“We found a deep connection there,” she said. “There’s a human being at the center of this, so we made friends. Like, genuine friends.”
Barrymore was among the notable names invited to Spears’ June 9 wedding to Sam Asghari. Madonna, Paris Hilton, Donatella Versace and Selena Gomez were also in attendance.
“It was intimate, it was fairy tale-ish. It was very sweet, there was no press. It was the way [Spears] wanted to do it,” Barrymore said of the pop superstar’s at-home nuptials. “She did the ceremony, we got right to the dance party. We had the best time.”
The former child actress previously discussed her communication with Spears during a September 2021 interview with “Entertainment Tonight.”
“[I wanted to] really show her I’m someone who has understood what a journey is like — and I don’t compare myself to her — but I’m here to support her if there’s anything she needs in private,” she said at the time.
Barrymore said she offered Spears “encouragement and just [told] her that I think she is the key to her freedom.”
Pressed about the Grammy winner’s response at the time, Barrymore said there’d been “little smoke signals.”
“I am very invested in this. I think everyone deserves the chance to get their life right, wrong and everything in between,” Barrymore said of her interest in the #FreeBritney movement. “This has become such public interest because it’s about something bigger.”
Barrymore, like many of Spears’ ardent fans, told “ET” that she was “invested” in seeing the pop icon liberated from the restrictive legal arrangement that controlled her personal, medical and financial affairs for nearly 14 years.
“It’s about being allowed to live your life,” she said.