Drew Barrymore felt like the "biggest failure" when she split from Will Kopelman.
The 41-year-old actress parted ways with the art consultant – with whom she has daughters Olive, three, and Frankie, 23 months, – last month after almost four years of marriage and she found admitting their relationship is over to be incredibly "shameful".
She said: "I put in my statement, about [our] divorce, the word ‘failure,’ because it’s so honest.
"When you break up with somebody, you’re like, ‘Yeah, that didn’t work,’ [but] when you get divorced you’re like, ‘I’m the biggest failure. This is the biggest failure’.
"It’s so shameful and hard to actually go through that, even privately.
"It’s a tough time. It’s a hard thing to go through. It’s like your being put on a cheese grater and every second, going, ‘Ah! This wasn’t the plan!’ "
But while she is finding things tough, the ‘Miss You Already’ star – who was previously briefly married to Jeremy Thomas and Tom Green – feels lucky to have received a lot of support and admits the outpouring of love and sympathy feels "nice".
Speaking to Chelsea Handler on her new Netflix talk show ‘Chelsea’, she said: "There has been this really nice feeling of something very fluid and positive and the opposite of how I felt inside.
"Everyone has just been so cool and chill and nice about everything that it quelled my own fears and demons about how we sort of have to go through things in life."
Drew has vowed not to return to dating any time soon as she’d rather just hang out with her friends.
She said: "What I do want is girlfriend time."
When the ‘Whip It’ star and Will announced their separation last month, they vowed to remain a "family".
They said in a statement: "Sadly, our family is separating legally, although we do not feel this takes away from us being a family.
"Divorce might make one feel like a failure, but eventually you start to find grace in the idea that life goes on."
Drew Barrymore: Divorce was failure
