Brooke Shields is perhaps one of the most iconic actresses of her generation. She is considered a great beauty by all her fans. However, now she is opening up about some of the unfair criticism the actress has faced in her life.
Keep reading to learn more about what the actress went through in her life…
Brooke Shields is one of the world’s most successful supermodels. She has made a name for herself both on the runway and on movie screens because of her immense talent and beauty.
The 57-year-old beauty icon however has had her fair share of detractors who tried to take away from her success. Now the actress is opening up about her relationship with her mother Teri who was her manager since Shields had been a child.
Her mother was her first critic. The actress recalls, “My mother would get drunk and say: ‘Why don’t you move your fat ass?’ So, I’ve always believed I had a fat ass.” She experienced body-shaming from her own mother which skewed how she viewed herself.
In 2012, her mother passed away after a lifelong battle with alcoholism. But her remarks about Shields left an impact on the actress that was hard to shake. It took years to repair the damage that was done.
In the end, it was her husband of 17 years Chris Henchy, a screen-writer who made the actress accept her body for what it was and made her see her own beauty.
She shared, “I would walk backwards out of rooms, and he’d say: ‘No, I want to grab onto you,’” Shields said. “He really celebrated my womanliness and my body. And I needed a man to celebrate me.”
She was previously married to Andre Agassi from 1997 to 1999. She broke into Hollywood as a teenage actress but it was her iconic Calvin Klein jeans ad, shot by Richard Avedon in 1980 that made her into the icon she is today.
While the actress was always considered beautiful by the masses, she shares how there would always be criticism about her. She said, “I modeled swimwear when I was 15, and even then I didn’t think I had a swimsuit body.” “I was a cover girl, not a supermodel. I was ‘neck up’ — the face, the eyebrows — and I was always described as ‘athletic’; ‘not rail-thin’; ‘not a runway model.’ Those messages, they seep into your consciousness,” the actress finished.
A few years ago, she did another swimsuit campaign and teamed up with Calvin Klein for a campaign yet again. She said she dedicated to the role and made sure she looked her best. “I knew that if I didn’t look my best, I’d be embarrassed and mad at myself. I stopped drinking beer and wine, and I worked out three times a week. I was the best version of myself,” she said, adding, “I was also hungry.”
It is so surprising to see that even a greaty beauty like Brooke Shields was no stranger to insecurities. While the world considered her beautiful, her own mother and other detractors tried to make her feel less than.
It is heartening to see that her husband countered her beliefs and reminded her of how beautiful she is; helping her accept her body for what it was.
Recently, the actress has opened about a sexual assault that she went through more than 30 years ago. In a recent interview with People, Shields revealed she was assaulted by a Hollywood executive shortly after graduating from Princeton University.
At the time she blamed herself, but as decades have gone by she’s had time to process what happened.“I’m more angry now than I was able to be then. If you’re afraid, you’re rightfully so. They are scary situations. They don’t have to be violent to be scary.”
This is the first time the model turned actress has revealed she was a victim of sexual assault because “People weren’t believing those stories back then. I thought I would never work again.”
Her story, which has sadly become too common in Hollywood, is told in more detail in a soon-to-be released two-part documentary, Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields.“Doing the documentary, you see it all together, and it’s a miracle that I survived,” Shields said.
After graduating from Princeton University, Shields found herself at the “lowest point” of her career. She met with an unnamed Hollywood executive for dinner who she believed would offer her a movie or a job, but after their meal he invited her to his hotel room.
He convinced her to go to his room under the guise of calling a cab from his room. But once there he sexually assaulted her.
“I didn’t fight,” she said. “I just froze.”
Shields felt incredibly guilty and blamed herself for the attack. “I kept saying, ‘I shouldn’t have done that. Why did I go up with him? I shouldn’t have had that drink at dinner.’ “
At the time Shields only told one person, her close friend and one-time security consultant Gavin de Becker. But now she’s ready to share her story “with the hopes of helping people not feel alone.”
“Everybody processes their own trauma on a different timeline. I want to be an advocate for women to be able to speak their truth.”
