Selma Blair clears the air with Drew Barrymore about ‘poison pen’ letters

Selma Blair’s memoir, Mean Baby: A Memoir of Growing Up,  unearthed the darkest sides of the actresses young life.

The actress appeared on The Drew Barrymore Show and opened up about a story from the book where she recalled how her father’s girlfriend send ‘poison pen’ letters to Drew under Selma’s name.

Blair said the letters, which were not from her, included death threats to Drew and that other letters had been sent to a film studio which resulted in the actress losing a role. 

Candid: Selma Blair appeared on The Drew Barrymore Show and opened up about a story about how her father’s girlfriend send ‘poison pen’ letters to Drew under Selma’s name

‘In my book, I was very close to my mother and my father and I went in and out of having some friendships, we never really clicked,’ Blair explained. ‘Because he did something so unthinkable to me, I would never call him Dad again, really.’

Selma accused her dad of being involved in a plot to derail her career by sending letters through FedEx to a film studio claiming the actress was a ‘heroin addict.’ 

 ‘It was a real kind of poison pen letter about me, claiming to be an agent. They fired me before even shooting.

‘They were lovely to me, but explained ‘We don’t know what’s going on, the liability. We don’t believe this, but,” she trailed off. 

Shocking: Selma accused her dad of being involved in a plot to derail her career by sending letters through FedEx to a film studio claiming the actress was a ‘ heroin addict’

Sometime later, Selma was approached by law enforcement about another bout of bizarre letters. 

‘I hear from a detective who said, ‘We know this is not you’ — this was like maybe almost a year later — ‘but someone has been writing letters to Drew Barrymore, poison pen letters, signed by Selma Blair,” she explained.

‘I eventually, long story short, learned it was my father, someone involved with my father and he was letting this information get to [his girlfriend at the time],’ said Blair.

Adding: ‘When he found out it was her, he chose her and didn’t believe me. He said, ‘No she’s not doing this, you’re also ruining her life, you put a mickey in her drink at Starbucks.’ I’m like, ‘I’m in New York, I’ve never met her.”

‘I hear from a detective who said, ‘We know this is not you’ — this was like maybe almost a year later — ‘but someone has been writing letters to Drew Barrymore, poison pen letters, signed by Selma Blair,” she explained.

‘I eventually, long story short, learned it was my father, someone involved with my father and he was letting this information get to [his girlfriend at the time],’ said Blair.

‘Good news, [they] really didn’t get to me,’ the host said. ‘Then I received your book and then I was like, ‘F**k this, I’m going after her, I want to heal this moment.”

Her father later came clean and ‘admitted at the end’ that he was at fault but the two never mended their relationship.

For Drew’s part, she was as shocked as anyone to have read the story in Selma’s autobiography since she had never received the threatening letters in the first place. 

‘Good news, [they] really didn’t get to me,’ the host said. ‘Then I received your book and then I was like, ‘F**k this, I’m going after her, I want to heal this moment.”    

Barrymore told her guest that she never would have believed that Selma was capable of the threats, even if she would have read them.

‘You were my childhood favorite, because you were the girl,’ Selma said in an emotional moment. ‘That’s why the letters went to you, I assume, because he knew what you meant to me. It’s not random. You were the favorite.’

‘You were my childhood favorite, because you were the girl,’ Selma said in an emotional moment. ‘That’s why the letters went to you, I assume, because he knew what you meant to me. It’s not random. You were the favorite.’

Blair’s book is a candid look at the star’s difficult life and in it she reveals harrowing stories like how she tried to kill herself in college after her boyfriend broke up with her, saying she swallowed a bottle of Tylenol and chased it with tequila while hiding in his closet. 

Blair’s memoir also touches upon her struggles with alcoholism, which started when she was just a child. 

In an excerpt obtained by People, she described the first time she got drunk as a ‘revelation, saying the effects of alcohol initially felt like the ‘warmth of God’ filling her up.

Shocking: Blair’s book is a candid look at the star’s difficult life and in it she reveals harrowing stories like how she tried to kill herself in college after her boyfriend broke up with her, saying she swallowed a bottle of Tylenol and chased it with tequila while hiding in his closet

It was Passover, a Jewish holiday in which drinking wine is a big part of the ceremonial dinner, called a Seder. 

She had been allowed small sips of Manischewitz wine at her family’s Seders for years, but she got carried away the year she was seven.

Because ‘no one was paying attention to my consumption level,’ she drank enough Manischewitz to get more than a buzz.

‘I got drunk that night. Very drunk. Eventually, I was put in my sister Katie’s bed with her. In the morning, I didn’t remember how I’d gotten there,’ she recalled.

After that, she usually wouldn’t drink to get drunk, but would have ‘quick sips whenever my anxiety would alight,’ making her barely tipsy.

‘I became an expert alcoholic, adept at hiding my secret,’ she wrote.

‘It was hard. I don’t know. But maybe it was easier. Maybe I never would have survived without a drink,’ she told Savannah Guthrie on the Today show last Wednesday. 

Blair continued to drink throughout elementary school, middle school, and high school.

‘I don’t know if I would’ve survived childhood without alcoholism,’ she told People. ‘That’s why it’s such a problem for a lot of people. It really is a huge comfort, a huge relief in the beginning. 

‘Maybe even the first few years for me because I did start really young with that as a comfort, as my coping mechanism,’ she said.

In college, her alcohol abuse worsened — and left her vulnerable to predators. On more than one occasion, she was too drunk to fight off men who raped her. 

‘I have been raped, multiple times, because I was too drunk to say the words ‘Please. Stop,” she said. 

During one spring break trip, after a day of binge-drinking, she said that she was raped by at least one man.

‘I don’t know if I would’ve survived childhood without alcoholism,’ she told People. ‘That’s why it’s such a problem for a lot of people. It really is a huge comfort, a huge relief in the beginning. 

‘I don’t know if both of them raped me. One of them definitely did,’ she wrote. 

‘I made myself small and quiet and waited for it to be over. I wish I could say what happened to me that night was an anomaly, but it wasn’t,’ she said. ‘Only that one time was violent. I came out of each event quiet and ashamed.’

Blair has been sober since 2016, and she has worked on her trauma with a therapist. 

The actress, who has also spoken candidly about having multiple sclerosis, said she also found it helpful to write about it in her memoir. 

The new memoir also delves into her battle with MS, and she said on Today this morning that she realizes now there were ‘so many things that were indicative of MS’ earlier in her life.

‘I do know for sure I had it by the age of 23,’ she said. ‘It was definitely there for so long.’ 

Blair teased a few details when she announced her memoir on Instagram in December, writing: ‘Bit by scrap by journal pages and letters, I wrote my first book: Mean Baby.’

‘Bit by scrap by journal pages and letters, I wrote my first book: Mean Baby.’