July 17, 2020 / By mobanmarket
The interview with actress Drew Barrymore published in EgyptAir’s inflight magazine was strange from its opening lines.
After detailing how the 43-year-old had been divorced several times and was “unstable in her relationships most of her life”, the article speculated that her “behavior is only natural since she lacked the male role model in her life after her parents’ divorce when she was only 9 years”.
The interview quickly went viral on social media after being posted by a bewildered reader, prompting Barrymore’s team to deny that the Hollywood star had talked to the magazine.
A spokesperson for Barrymore told HuffPost the actress “did not participate” in the interview and that her team is “working with the airline PR team”.
The story, published in EgyptAir’s Horus magazine, was riddled with grammatical mistakes and strange quotes attributed to Barrymore.
“I cannot deny that women made a great achievement over [the] past century, there is significant progress recorded by people who study women status throughout history,” she is quoted as saying in response to a question about women in society.
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This interview with Drew Barrymore in the Egypt Air in flight magazine is, umm, surreal. pic.twitter.com/fN3lNHXbL0
— Adam Baron (@adammbaron) October 2, 2018
At another point she encourages any woman who is overweight “to work on regaining her beauty and body, especially that it is not as hard as one may think”.
The article also describes her as having decided to “take an unlimited vacation to play her most crucial role as a mother” even though she continues acting.
The story lingers at one point over the weight that Barrymore apparently gained and lost after giving birth.
The author of the article was given in the magazine as Aida Tekla but appears to have been written by Aida Takla O’Reilly, a veteran show business reporter and former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
In a series of tweets Ms Takla O’Reilly confirmed she wrote the story and said the interview “is genuine and far from fake”. In one tweet she misspelled her subject’s name as “Barrimoor”, saying later that she dictated the message.
This doesn't negate the fact that the interview with Drew Barrimoor which took place in New York is genuine &far from fake.
As far as Drew we interviewed her several times I saw her grow up before my eyes she is charming and talented.@EGYPTAIR— Aida (@Aidatakla1) October 3, 2018
EgyptAir also disputed that the interview was fake, saying it was “a professional magazine interview”.
Dear sir, this a professional magazine interview conducted by Dr. Aida Tekla Former president of the HFPA (Hollywood Foreign Press Association) and one of the voting members of the Golden Globes.
— EGYPTAIR (@EGYPTAIR) October 3, 2018
Chris Miller, the president of Barrymore’s production company, told Buzzfeed News that the quotes appeared to be based on a press conference Barrymore held with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a collective of international journalists.
A version of the article also appeared in another Arabic publication, raising the possibility that Barrymore’s quotes had been translated from English to Arabic and then back to English, which might explain the awkward syntax.
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