Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s budding romance has inspired a slew of Swifties to find love, including Drew Barrymore.
“There’s something about this human being that’s kind of pushing people to express themselves in a very joyous positive way,” Barrymore, 48, said during a teaser for the Monday, October 23, episode of The Drew Barrymore Show. “I just want to say, for me personally, I have been single for seven years, seeing her on that first date out there in the box with his family, I had a very big … ‘aha moment.’”
Barrymore has been vocal about her struggles to dive back into the dating scene since she split from Will Kopelman, with whom she shares two daughters, in April 2016. It was until footage of Swift, 33, attending Kelce’s Kansas City Chiefs game last month that sparked her newfound revelation.
“There was something so normal about it, and obviously Taylor Swift is everything but normal, but [it made me think], ‘I’m a female, I’m going to go out on a date with a male, I’m not going to overthink this, I am not going to be the dark horse and be secretive and weird about it,’” Barrymore told her TV sidekick, Ross Mathews, during a “Drew’s News” segment about taking her kids to see Swift’s Eras Tour movie. “Like, she just went out on a date and it made me think I could just go out on a date.”
She continued: “This was evidence of not being affected by what other people think or having herself stop herself. It was so calm, confident and normal that it just made me think I should do this too. And I thank her for that.”
Kelce, 34, publicly expressed interest in Swift when he revealed on a July episode of his “New Heights” podcast that he tried to gift her a DIY friendship bracelet with his phone number on it when he went to see her Eras Tour concert in Missouri. While his attempts were not successful, they eventually connected and went on a couple of private dates. Swift then attended her first Chiefs game — she has since gone to even more NFL matches — in September when they played the Chicago Bears. Weeks later, Kelce and Swift were seen holding hands on an October 14 date night in New York City.
The outings subsequently inspired Barrymore to take her on-and-off fling to the next level.
“The one person I have been seeing sort of in and around the last three years, I oddly met on Raya [and] I invited him to a wedding next weekend,” Barrymore quipped to guest Gwyneth Paltrow on next Monday’s episode. “Something about Taylor Swift dating like a normal person and not being a dark horse about it, I was like, ‘I overthink everything, I should just go on a date. What’s wrong with me?’”
Barrymore has previously been married three times. After respective unions and splits from Jeremy Thomas and Tom Green, she wed Kopelman, 45, in 2012. They announced their split in 2016. Immediately following her divorce, she wasn’t sure how to dive back into the dating pool while navigating life as a single parent.
“I don’t know how to date with kids,” the Never Been Kissed star said during an episode of her talk show in January 2022. “I’m not there yet. I have two young girls, and I don’t want to bring people home. I think that it would take me a very long time to meet someone and get to know them before I could ever even introduce them to my daughters.”
