The Strike-Related Mess At ‘The Drew Barrymore Show’ Has Somehow Gotten Even Messier

After Drew Barrymore kicked off a firestorm with the Writers Guild of America by announcing that her talk show would resume taping on Monday, the situation got even worse as pleas to honor the writers’ strike were ignored.

As The Drew Barrymore Show started taping new episodes for a September 18 premiere, WGA East members picketed outside CBS studios. While Barrymore is not violating SAG-AFTRA rules, the work on the show does “violate WGA strike rules,” according to a statement from the guild. The situation devolved when the talk show not only ignored the warning, but actively removed two members from the audience who were wearing WGA pins.

“Went to @DrewBarrymoreTV after winning tickets, unaware of the #WGA strike,” Dominic Turiczek tweeted. “We took pins & went in, got kicked out, & verbally assaulted by @DrewBarrymore’s crew. It’s clear they don’t support #WGAStrong, writers or fans! #DrewTheRightThing So we took shirts and joined. F*ck that.”

Turiczek later clarified, “We knew about the #WGA strike, just not that they were picketing at Drew’s show. We were unaware until inside, that her show had WGA writers, thus crossing picket lines by starting again. We won the tickets last minute and didn’t do enough research, clearly.”

The news of The Drew Barrymore Show booting audience members for wearing WGA pins quickly spread, and a spokesperson has since released a statement to Variety regretting the incident.

“It is our policy to welcome everyone to our show tapings,” the statement said. “Due to heightened security concerns today, we regret that two audience members were not permitted to attend or were not allowed access. Drew was completely unaware of the incident and we are in the process of reaching out to the affected audience members to offer them new tickets.”

(Via Variety)