Whitney Cummings Says Drew Barrymore Helped Her With Postpartum Depression

Whitney Cummings feels grateful for how her friend Drew Barrymore helped her through a tough time.

On the Thursday, January 16 episode of The Drew Barrymore Showtold Cummings she was in the “deep throes of postpartum depression” when she was offered to appear in the revival show Hollywood Squares along with Barrymore.

But after finding out Barrymore was involved with the show, Cummings decided to sit through the episode, which she said “took me out of it” and “really helped me a lot.”

“I needed to see other moms like working and having fun, and that was a huge healing moment for me,” Cummings shared. “I think I was just putting so much pressure on myself, and it really helped me kind of let it go.”

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Cummings, who welcomed her son in December 2023, said Barrymore made her feel “safe”.

“I knew that even though I suck, we were going to make it fun and we were going to figure it out,” she said. “Then I was confident enough to just be able to feel, ‘You can do this, and if you can’t do that, that’s fine too.’

Cummings said that moment helped her realize that the pressure she was putting on herself was what was blocking her.

“I realized how much I defined myself by my ability to make people laugh or be smart or say the thing in the moment or remember the thing the fastest, and my brain wasn’t working,” Cummings admitted. “I was so scared.”

Barrymore, who is mother to daughters Olive and Frankie with ex-husband Will Kopelman, also opened up about her postpartum experience. She said she felt “isolated” and “didn’t know what was happening to me chemically.”

“I felt so confused in the most profound and beautiful ways after I had my kids,” Barrymore shared. “I didn’t know who I was supposed to be, and then I didn’t know how to work. I felt like I didn’t necessarily relate to my friends the same way anymore.”

The Mixed The actress first struggled with postpartum depression when she had her younger daughter, Frankie, in 2014.

“It was just really challenging and I felt overwhelmed,” the actress told PEOPLE in a 2015 interview. “I made a lot of decisions and I definitely changed my work life to fit my parenthood.”