Following the death of Drew Barrymore's sister Jessica, many are wondering if the Hollywood dynasty is cursed. INSIDE EDITION explains.
The death of Drew Barrymore’s half-sister Jessica is the latest tragedy to strike the legendary Hollywood dynasty.
The New York Daily News is calling it “The Curse of the Barrymores.”
Jessica, who would have been 48 today, was found dead in her car near San Diego. White pills and empty vodka bottles were scattered around her body.
A witness, Oscar Sandoval, said, “She was just laying on her seat just looking up. I thought that she was sleeping, you know but I guess she wasn't sleeping.”
Generations of Barrymores have battled booze and drugs and lost.
Drew, who became a child star in E.T. She wrote in her autobiography, Little Girl Lost, that she was: "Drinking alcohol at eleven, smoking marijuana at the at the age of twelve and snorting cocaine and the age of thirteen."
Drew's grandfather, the legendary John Barrymore, drank himself to death at age 62.
Archival video of her father, a gaunt John Drew Barrymore, shows him just a couple of years before his death in 2004. He was living in a shack. Drink, drugs and mental problems had turned him from a one-time prince of Hollywood into a pathetic recluse.
One photo showing Jessica, Drew, and half-brother John was taken moments after they scattered their father's ashes.
Incredibly, INSIDE EDITION found Drew's half-brother John living a hand-to-mouth existence on welfare in 2012. He looked eerily like his father.
He told INSIDE EDITION's Jim Moret that Drew had cut him out of her life.
He said, “Every time I see her, she's as nice as can be. ‘I love you. Let's get together.’ She's sold it to me five times but I can never reach her.”
The Barrymores are not the only Hollywood family battling similar demons.
Just two weeks ago, the 27-year-old son of Oscar winning actress Tatum O’Neal was arrested on drug charges in New York City. His mother has also struggled with drug addiction.
And Robert Downey Jr.'s son, Indio, was arrested for cocaine possession in June. Robert Downey Jr. commented: "There's a genetic component to addiction and Indio has likely inherited it."
Sadly, that is also the case with the Barrymores.
