Drew Barrymore's heart breaks for her younger self.

The 50 First Dates actress reflected on the body-shaming she experienced as a child and the hurtful comments she heard about her body before she was even a teenager during the January 14 episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, per People. Sharing a photo of herself at 10 years old, Barrymore recalled people critiquing her appearance and comparing how different she looked to when she starred in E.T. at 7.

"This picture... It just breaks my heart," she said. "I was 10 years old and I just was told by everyday, 'You don't look how you did in E.T. You're too heavy. You're not blonde enough. You're not old enough. You're too young. You're not tall.' And everybody just started getting involved in the way I looked."

Barrymore admitted that she didn't "know what I'm supposed to be for other people" at the time and is proud of how much she has grown over the years.

"And you don't know yourself at 10. What I'm so relieved about now is that it's four decades later, I'm 50... I do know what's important now, and the look in my eyes is so clear," she said, adding, "It's nice to know that no matter how low it gets, or how much pressure we feel, or how unproud of ourselves, or how we are not pleasing to someone else, or we're not fitting into some mold someone created for us... that real, true happiness is just this choice we make."

The Ever After star noted that it can often be a struggle to make that choice and believe you deserve to be happy, but even if it takes "a long time," it's a worthy pursuit.

"It's a battle and a beautiful, internal war that we fight on the front lines, day in and day out, to get to a place where we can actually say this sentence and believe it, which is: 'I deserve happiness,'" she said. "That, if it takes you a long time to figure out, it's okay. As long as we learn it as some point."

Joey Brooks

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