Drew Barrymore Show audience members speak out after being ‘kicked out’ for WGA support

Two people who won tickets to be in the audience for a recording of Drew Barrymore's show ended up joining a Writers' Guild of America (WGA) picket outside.

In a tweet, Dominic Turiczek explained that he had won tickets to watch the recording of The Drew Barrymore Show, unaware that a WGA picket would be taking place there on that day.

X / @dom_turiczek

After arriving at the recording and seeing that there was a picket, they took pin badges in support of the striking writers and went inside. But once they got inside, they claimed they were 'verbally assaulted' by members of the crew before being kicked out.

In response to that reception, they got t-shirts from the strikers and joined the picket line outside.

Dominic explained: “Went to @DrewBarrymoreTV after winning tickets, unaware of the #WGA strike,” he wrote alongside a photo of himself posing outside of CBS studios. “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--- that.”

He added: “[We] knew about the #WGA strike, just not that they were picketing at Drew’s show.

X / @dom_turiczek

“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.”

Responding to the incident, a spokesperson for Drew Barrymore told People: “It is our policy to welcome everyone to our show tapings.

“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.”

Drew Barrymore said in an Instagram post that the show would be resuming production, despite the ongoing strikes, saying that it would abide by strike rules as it would not be promoting any struck shows.

Taylor Hill/FilmMagic

However, the WGA argued that the show itself was a struck show as it has WGA members among its writing staff and announced that would be picketing the show.

The WGA strike began on 2 May 2023, and has been continuing for 133 days since then at the time of writing. The WGA was joined by the actors' union SAG-AFTRA on 14 July.

The WGA began the strike due to a combination of factors, including practically non-existent residual payments for writers since the advent of streaming platforms. The union has also said that it wants assurances that the use of artificial intelligence in the industry will be properly regulated and limited in future.