The National Book Foundation on Tuesday revoked its invitation for Drew Barrymore to host its award ceremony after she announced that her daytime television show would resume amid the nationwide writers’ strike.
On Monday, the actor and TV show host announced that her show, “The Drew Barrymore Show,” would move forward with production despite the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike that began in May. The stricken writers are pushing the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, made up of studios and streaming executives, for better pay and bigger writers’ rooms, among other things, but Barrymore’s show has decided to proceed without the WGA writers.
With the rise of streaming in recent years, smaller writers’ rooms and a shorter number of episodes have become the norm. Even further, writers have said that streaming has made it so that residuals aren’t beneficial or profitable for them.
In July, SAG-AFTRA, the union comprised of actors, joined WGA to demand better pay from networks by starting their own strike. However, Barrymore insisted in her Monday announcement that her show would remain “in compliance” with the SAG-AFTRA strike, which in part prohibits actors from promoting their work.
“In light of the announcement that ‘The Drew Barrymore Show’ will resume production, the National Book Foundation has rescinded Ms. Barrymore’s invitation to host the 74th National Book Awards Ceremony,” the National Book Foundation said in a statement on Tuesday. “Our commitment is to ensure that the focus of the Awards remains on celebrating writers and books, are we are grateful to Ms. Barrymore and her team for their understanding in this situation.”
In May, however, Barrymore stepped down as host of this year’s MTV Movie & TV Awards, citing the WGA strike.
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“I have listened to the writers, and in order to truly respect them, I will pivot from hosting the MTV Movie & TV Awards live in solidarity with the strike. Everything we celebrate and honor about movies and television is born out of their creation,” she said.
On Monday, when Barrymore announced that her show would continue in spite of the strike, she acknowledged her decision not to host the MTV Awards and explained why she decided to go forward with her own show.
“I made a choice to walk away from the MTV, film and television awards because I was the host and it had a direct conflict with what the strike was dealing with which was studios, streamers, film, and television. It was also in the first week of the strike and so I did what I thought was the appropriate thing at the time to stand in solidarity with the writers,” Barrymore wrote.
“And to be clear, our talk show actually wrapped on April 20th so we never had to shut down the show. However, I am also making the choice to come back for the first time in this strike for our show, that may have my name on it but this is bigger than just me,” she continued.
The Writers Guild of America opposes Barrymore’s decision, confirming on Sunday that her show is “a WGA covered, struck show.”
“The Guild has, and will continue to, picket struck shows that are in production during the strike,” WGA said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Any writing on ‘The Drew Barrymore Show’ is in violation of WGA strike rules.”
WGA writers and their supporters picketed in front of the New York studio where her show is filmed on Mondays and Tuesdays.