Head Writers Tell Barrymore They Won't Return to Show

Now that the Writers Guild is no longer on strike, the Drew Barrymore Show is returning to the air next week. But the show will go on without its three head writers, Variety reports. Chelsea White, Cristina Kinon, and Liz Koe turned down offers to go back to work, after the show's host faced a backlash for announcing last month the show would relaunch before the strike ended. Barrymore then reversed that decision. The three head writers, who have been with the show since its first season, told the Hollywood Reporter that they learned it was returning from social media.

White, Kinon, and Koe expressed their opposition to the show returning, as did the union, and the three picketed outside the show's studio in Manhattan—with one of their signs reading, "Drew's News: Strikes." Barrymore's decision, White said at the time, "sends a message that union writers are not valuable." The show is interviewing potential replacements. (More Drew Barrymore stories.)