In her forthcoming documentary about her life and long career, Brooke Shields describes in detail an assault she experienced at the hands of somebody she terms “an industry insider”.
The actress and author tells how she was in her early 20s when she met the man – someone she considered a friend – for dinner, then went to his hotel room to order a cab home while he left the room. Soon, she describes, he returned to the room where he attacked her.
“He was right on me. It was just like wrestling,” she says, and adds that, at the time, she blamed herself for drinking wine and going to his room.
She recounts the story in the ABC News/Hulu Lana Wilson-directed docuseries Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields that premiered at Sundance. Pretty Baby – named after one of her films – which explores the way she became an object of sexual desire while still a young teenager through a trio of films – Pretty Baby, The Blue Lagoon and Endless Love – as well as her advertisements for Calvin Klein jeans. At 14, she became the youngest ever model to be on the cover of Vogue magazine.
Shields has always previously said that, despite her sexualised image and her global fame at a tender age, she always escaped the worst types of behaviour now widely detailed in the #MeToo movement – due, she thought, to her own conservative attitude and her fiercely protective mother-manager Teri, who would accompany her on film sets and tours.
However, the documentary also reveals how uncomfortable Shields felt as a young actress during sex scenes like those shot by Endless Love director Franco Zeffirelli, something she talked to Deadline about at the Sundance festival. And she has previously told how the producers encouraged an off-screen romance between her and Blue Lagoon co-star Christopher Atkins, despite their ages of 14 and 18 respectively.
Pretty Baby was screened at the Sundance Film Festival and is coming soon to Hulu.
