Brooke Shields speaks out for the first time about being sexually assaulted in her 20s.
Speaking to People for an interview published Wednesday, the actor recalled an early-career moment when he had dinner with an influential Hollywood executive, who then urged Shields to hail a cab from his hotel room and stay there.
“I thought I was going to get a movie, a job,” he told reporters, without elaborating on the nature of the attack or naming the man.
At the time, Shields was already a former child star who had been guided by her sexuality for years, which allowed her to “dissociate” from the experience.
“You leave your body. “You’re not there.” It didn’t happen,'” the 57-year-old told People, adding that she used to blame herself, too.
“I kept saying, ‘I shouldn’t have done that. Why did I go up with him? I shouldn’t have had that drink with dinner.”
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Shields said she was worried about going public because no one “then believed those stories.” The actor added that he was at the “lowest point” of his career when the attack happened and fears he will “never work again” if he speaks out.
“It took me a long time to process that,” said Shields, who is also chronicling the incident in a new docuseries premiering April 3 on Hulu.
“I’m angrier now than I could have been then. If you are afraid, you are right. These are scary situations. They don’t have to be violent to be scary.”
In recent years, Shields has reflected on being hypersexualized by the media after becoming a Calvin Klein model at 15. Journalist Barbara Walters asked the teen star about her measurements in a 1981 interview that Shields later described as “practically murderous.”
But Shields moved on, carved out a decade-long career and started a family. In 2021, she launched Beginning Is Now, a wellness brand for women over 40.
“I want to be a lawyer so women can speak their truth,” Shields told People.
I need help? Visit RAINN’s National Online Sexual Assault Hotline OR National Sexual Violence Resource Center website.
