Drew Barrymore Says She Skips Sex Scenes While Watching Movies On A Plane: “I Don’t Want To Sit Around Watching Sex With A Stranger”

Drew Barrymore likes to keep things PG on her flights. On this morning’s episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, the actress-turned-talk show host revealed that she frantically skipped over a sex scene to avoid being caught by her seat neighbor on a recent flight back to New York.

During the Drew’s News segment, co-host Ross Mathews read off a headline about “why we become Peeping Toms on planes,” prompting both he and Barrymore to admit that they watch other passengers’ screens instead of their own.

“Why is it so enticing?” Barrymore wondered. “It’s like all the sudden I don’t want to watch what I’m watching, I want to watch what you’re watching but with no sound? Is there a reason for this?”

(Editor’s Note: The Drew Barrymore Show is currently on hiatus. This article was originally published on Nov. 29, 2023 when this episode first aired. Drew will return with new episodes in January 2024.)

Well, according to a Washington Post report, people tend to “shoulder surf” on airplanes “out of sheer boredom and curiosity.” Mathews elaborated, “At a certain point, I’m sick of what I downloaded. Let me see what you’ve got.”

With that being said, Barrymore recalled scrambling to fast-forward through an NSFW scene in a movie she was watching on a recent flight.

“I just took a flight from Austin to New York and I was sitting next to this nice, middle-aged man. I’m, you know, a middle-aged woman,” she explained. “And I was watching something and a sex scene came on. And I was like, ‘Fast forward! Fast forward! Fast forward!'”

The 50 First Dates star was shocked, “not only” because she had become a “middle-aged woman,” but that she had also become one who freaks out over sex scenes.

“But I didn’t know him!” she said of the man she sat next to on the plane. “And I’m like, I don’t want to sit around watching sex with a stranger.”

Mathews then concluded the segment with an overall takeaway from his co-host’s experience.

“Just remember: if you’re shoulder surfing other people, they’re shoulder surfing you. So be aware,” he said, to which Barrymore cheekily replied, “Shoulder surfing sounds like something else to me.”

The Drew Barrymore Show airs on weekdays on CBS. You can check the website for local airtimes.