A rumor that circulated online in June 2025 claimed actor and talk show host Drew Barrymore came out, announcing her sexual orientation as something other than straight. Snopes received some reader searches for this matter, including asking "Drew Barrymore has come out June 2025?" and "Has Drew Barrymore come out as gay?"
For example, on June 30, a Facebook page named Amazing Story posted a brief video displaying a picture of Barrymore with the words, "Drew Barrymore has come out." The text caption for the post also read, "Drew Barrymore has officially come out — and her announcement has fans emotional. Click the comment to see what she revealed..." The post received more than 149,000 views. Other users on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube shared the same rumor.
(Image courtesy of Amazing Story/Facebook)
The user creating the Amazing Story post pointed to an article linked in the comments. That article, hosted by the blog defdeal.com, displayed the headline, "Drew Barrymore Comes Out—Fans React To Her Bold Truth." The story began as follows:
Drew Barrymore came out with pride.
Barrymore has been in the spotlight for almost her whole life.
Barrymore has enthralled audiences for decades with her breakthrough performance in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and her prosperous career as an actor, producer, and talk show presenter.
She has now come out with pride and opened up about her s**uality.
However, that article, as well as those linked under other Facebook posts, did not provide any details of Barrymore recently announcing anything about her sexuality. Similarly, searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo found no recently published articles reported by entertainment or other types of news media outlets. Had Barrymore, a high-profile celebrity, announced such news, entertainment publishers would have widely covered the matter. Rather, the articles linked under the Facebook posts ended by promoting a nearly 22-year-old interview in which Barrymore told ContactMusic.com she identified as bisexual.
Snopes contacted by email a spokesperson for Barrymore and will update this article if we learn more information.
Searches of the aforementioned search engines and also Facebook found the origins of the republished, outdated news with the It's Gone Viral website. On April 1, 2025, IGV published an article with the headline "Drew Barrymore Has Come Out." The manager or managers of defdeal.com and other blogs later republished the same story or similar stories, including with the bits about the ContactMusic.com interview from 2003. Other social media users also shared posts beginning in April, including a TikTok video (archived) receiving more than 3.6 million views.
By email, Snopes asked IGV personnel about the presentation of their story giving off the appearance of Barrymore recently making an announcement about her sexuality, as well as whether or not the article shared any associated with April Fools' Day. In response, Millicent Cooke, editorial lead for IGV, told Snopes, "You're absolutely right - on reflection and with context, the headline is misleading, and I can confirm that it was not published as an April Fools' Day joke. It appears that older content was repackaged without adequate context, which likely contributed to the confusion."
In a later message, Cooke said they had removed all Facebook posts, adding, "We acknowledge the headline was misleading and regret the confusion it caused - that was not our intention. We take full responsibility and are already reviewing our editorial processes and rolling out team training to ensure this doesn't happen again. We're committed to delivering accurate, responsible content and fully recognise the responsibility that comes with that."
Following Cooke's second email, the article page displayed the message "Error 404 - Not Found."
For further reading of fact checks regarding Barrymore, Snopes previously reported about a rumor claiming she intended to participate in "E.T.: The Return to Earth," a sequel to Steven Spielberg's "E.T."