Drew Barrymore reveals her bitter childhood

Former wild child Drew Barrymore has opened up in an interview about her lifelong struggle to cope with her unconventional parents.

"I wish I had accepted, at 18, that my parents were not really interested in being parents," the Sun quoted her, as saying.

"My father, John (who died in 2004), actually told me when I was a kid: 'I can't be a father. You have to understand that'. But I never did. My mum, Jaid, (now 64) divorced my dad when I was nine," she said.

"They were not bad people. They just did not want to be my mum and dad. There is no resentment or bitterness. My parents wanted to be somewhere else and do their own thing. So it took time for me to come to terms with it all," she added.

"I stopped taking drugs and drink on July 3, 1989 - I was just 14. So it feels like ten lives. I did lots of things in my teens but felt that I still had the rest of my life ahead of me," she said.

"I have made mistakes in the past, because I thought relationships had to be really heavy to be deep. They don't," she added.