“It was a no brainer to me … so that I could be present and raise my kids myself,” the Drew Barrymore Show host, 46, told Andy Cohen on Wednesday, March 10. “I didn’t want to be on a film set asking the nanny how the kids were. I was like, that is not my journey. … [But] I think I went way too far the opposite direction.”

The actress explained during the SiriusXM’s Andy Cohen Live appearance: “I was so knee-deep into mothering my kids. I was like, I don’t know who I am anymore. … And if I can’t remember that I’m an individual with a skill set, I might die.”

The Wildflower author said that filming Santa Clarita Diet “saved” her. “I got to play this woman who gets to eat people and it was exactly how I felt,” the California native joked. “I had gained a lot of weight. I had lost my way. I was going through a really difficult divorce [with Will Kopelman] in that it just was the worst thing and everything I didn’t want to happen. And that’s what made it difficult. And I just got to remember, like, you are a person with a history. You’re not just a lost mother. You are a human individual, and you can go and get lost into something and find yourself again.”

The Golden Globe winner called the Netflix show “the greatest thing that ever happened” to her, explaining, “It reminded me to not lose the baby with the bath water in that I don’t want to be filming all the time because I want to raise my kids. It’s like, you are this person. Don’t ditch who you are for your kids. I think that’s a recipe for disaster and parenting.”

Barrymore welcomed daughters Olive, 8, and Frankie, 6, with Kopelman, 42, in 2012 and 2014, respectively. The former couple split in 2016.

When it comes to coparenting with the art consultant, the 50 First Dates star told her Instagram followers two years later that their kids are worth “every second” of pain.

“Will and I continue to marvel at what we made and try to be the best coparents we can be,” Barrymore wrote via Instagram in December 2018. “It’s not always easy and the point is…nothing in life is. But it doesn’t mean that any bitter outweighs the sweet!”

The New York native got engaged last month to Vogue‘s Alexandra Michler. “I am probably president of her fan club,” Barrymore gushed during a February Howard Stern Show appearance. “The #NoEvilStepmother is the greatest blessing I could have hoped for. She is just so wonderful. I want him to be happy.”

This story originally appeared on: US Magazine - Author:Riley Cardoza