OriginalFirestarterstar and former child actressDrew Barrymorehas torched The Razzies for its decision to nominate 12-year-old actress Ryan Kiera Armstrong for her performance in last year’s remake of the Stephen King story. Appearing onCBS’s Talk of the Table, Barrymore took aim at the ‘worst of’ awards saying that putting such a young star as Armstrong in the firing line made her “blood boil” and warned the Razzies not to make such a mistake again.
“Well, this makes my blood boil. Listen, I get poking fun at ourselves, I mean come on fair game bring it on, but Ryan is 12 years old and Razzie co-founder John Wilson has since apologized and removed her from the category and said they’re implementing a new rule precluding anyone 18 years or younger…I would just say to them, ‘Please don’t do this to people who are younger. That’s not nice,’” Barrymore added. “And I really like Ryan… don’t do this again.”
Calling the organization out for “bullying,” Barrymore commended movie fans as a whole for not jumping on the bandwagon and mocking the young star, with the majority instead criticizing The Razzies for their wrongdoing, whichis far from the first wrongdoingcommitted by the organization.
“I don’t like it. She is younger and it is bullying. We do want to be cautious about how we speak to or about people because it encourages other people to join in on that bandwagon. I’m glad to see people didn’t jump on the ‘let’s make fun of her’ wave and instead said, ‘This isn’t right.’ You got to have a sense of humor but when you’re talking about children all bets are off. I don’t like it.”
Related:Is It Time to Retire The Razzie Awards?
The Razzies Has Apologized to Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Rescinded Her Nomination & Implemented an Age Restriction
The nomination of the youngFirestarterstar was quickly met with criticism, with The Razzies now apologizing to the actress, rescinding her nomination, and implementing an age restriction regarding who can be nominated in the future.
“The recent valid criticism of the choice of 11 year old Armstrong as a nominee for one of our awards brought our attention to how insensitive we’ve been in this instance. As a result, we have removed Armstrong’s name from the Final Ballot that our members will cast next month. We also believe a public apology is owed Ms. Armstrong, and wish to say we regret any hurt she experienced as a result of our choices,” the head of the group behind the Golden Raspberry Awards, John Wilson, said in a statement.
“Having learned from this lesson, we would also like to announce that, from this point forward, we are adopting a Voting Guideline precluding any performer or film-maker under 18 years of age from being considered for our awards,” he continued adding, “Since our motto is “Own Your Bad,” we realize that we ourselves must also live up to it.”
Ryan Kiera Armstrong is currently starring alongside Nicolas Cage in the westernThe Old Way. Drew Barrymore, meanwhile, will continue to presentThe Drew Barrymore Show,which was recently renewed for another season.
