Drew Barrymore is opening up about her unconventional childhood.

The actress celebrated Halloween by dressing up for Christmas on this morning’s episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, where she chatted with Mariah Carey about her upcoming Christmastime Tour.

According to Barrymore, the holidays were “very triggering” for her as a kid — but not Halloween.

“The reason I loved it as a kid — Halloween — was because I didn’t grow up with a traditional family,” she said. “And to be honest, the holidays were very triggering for me.”

“Halloween was the most empowering, it didn’t matter where you came from, who you belonged to — you just got to express yourself and be so artistic and empowered,” Barrymore continued. “And that was sort of my origin story of why I fell in love with Halloween.”

But now that Barrymore has kids of her own, her view on the holidays has changed. “I am so all-out,” she added.

It’s no secret that Barrymore had a unique childhood. The actress starred in her first commercial at only 11 months old, before making her film debut in Ken Russell’s Altered States when she was five. Two years later, she had her breakout role in Steven Spielberg‘s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

While her professional life flourished from a young age, her personal life was anything but normal.

“I got emancipated at 14 and got my first apartment and got away from it,” she said on a December 2023 episode of The Drew Barrymore Show. “I was in an institution for two years. I was like, ‘I’ve got to get away from this and I’ve got to go find my path somewhere else.’ I had to take care of myself so young.”

She added, “My biggest thing that I would like to put to bed finally is to stop being angry and disappointed and so critical of the way I parented myself. But I had no other choice because I had to.”

The Drew Barrymore Show airs on weekdays on CBS. You can check the website for local airtimes.