WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1423 - Brooke Shields

Episode Date: April 3, 2023

Brooke Shields is able to look back critically on the toxic culture and misogynistic power structure that pervaded her early career while remaining grateful for the life she lived and the person she became. Marc talks with Brooke about her journey from modeling to acting to motherhood, as explored in the new documentary Pretty Baby. They also delve into the complicated relationship Brooke had with her own mother and what Brooke is hoping to impart to her own teen daughters today. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So, no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Gold tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those, too.

Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+.

We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global bestselling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life when i die here you'll never leave japan alive fx's shogun a new original series streaming february 27th exclusively on disney plus 18 plus subscription required t's and c's apply all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucksters what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf going strong still going strong having the big talks with the interesting people. Always

new. I mean, I never know what's going to happen. Oddly, that's true. Look, you guys, Brooke Shields is here. All right? Brooke Shields. I've been talking about her lately, but I'm not alone. Who doesn't love Brooke Shields? What kind of fucking monster doesn't love Brooke Shields? I mean, I feel like she's been in my whole life, but she really hasn't. I mean, when I was younger, she was sort of defining, you know, I mean, I bought a pair of Calvin Klein jeans. I don't even know if she was necessarily advertising them to me. I mean, I remember realizing like, hey, these aren't just for girls. I'm getting some Calvins. I had Calvins, Brooke Shields on the billboard in Times Square. I remember it because when I was

like 14 or 15 years old, me and my buddy Dave went to New York City with fake IDs. He had his family worries. And if I'm remembering correctly, there was a giant Brook Shields billboard in Times Square next to the billboard that still blew smoke rings. I'm going to bring that up to her. There was a billboard. I mean, some of you have heard about it. You've seen pictures of it. Still blew smoke rings. It was for Winston cigarettes, I bet.

And there was a hole in the guy's mouth and smoke rings would come out. And next to that was a Brook Shields Calvin Klein mouth and smoke rings would come out. And next to that was a, uh, Brooke Shields, Calvin Klein, uh, billboard, swear to God. And then it was weird.

Cause me and Dave were kids, 15 stayed out in my grandmother's Pompton lakes, New Jersey, took the bus in to time square and just wandered around. Some guy tried to roll us. I remember he was like, you guys, you're looking for guitars?

We're like, yeah. What do you got? We got Gibson or a Fender? Yeah, it's in the alley. I got Gibson Fender. And I kind of remember that. And we went to Manny's Music. What was that on 48th, 47th, 48th? I can't remember. It was a very exciting time. And we just wanted to drink beers because we had these fake IDs and they serve anybody back in the day in New York. And I remember we went to like Hamburger Harry's or something just to drink beers. It's fucking ridiculous. Good times, though. Brooke Shields, Billboard, Times Square.

She's here today. She's here because Pretty Baby, Brooke Shields, it's a documentary, premieres today. Premieres today on Hulu. You know, I'd like to think I'm working, but every once in a while, I see people that accomplish big things. And I can look at my life and see that I've accomplished things, but a lot of times maybe I don't give myself credit for like for the work because I'm so engaged with it.

How much prep do I really do? What am I doing? Am I a craftsman? I guess so. I guess, I guess my legacy are these conversations. You know, I did here's I,

here's where I'm at. And I don't even know what this means, but I wanted to find out how many days I've been alive. Do you know how many days you've been alive? I know how many days I've been alive. 21,738. 21,738. I'm going to break that down at some point to at what age did I start sort of engaging with life in a

real way? And how many hours was I sleeping? So I can just figure out what I did with that time. Because sometimes, you know, I look at stuff that I have, or I look at behavior that I do, and sometimes it feels familiar. Like, you know, I'm doing this vegan thing. All right. Now I feel like I've tried this before and, and I don't know when, but I kind of know that I tried it to some degree before. Cause I'm eating stuff that, that seems familiar to me that I've eaten before. Like, but not just like, oh yeah, I enjoy this. Like I was trying to do it at another time and somehow or another, it crapped out for reasons that I don't quite know. But I have these cycles, these patterns, and there's so many things that I've done and

let go of in 21,738 days. How many of those were smoking? How many of those were like wearing boots? How many of those were wearing those black jeans I used to have when I was younger? What happened to that belt? This isn't nostalgia. It's just a time thing. How did I utilize my 21,738 days alive on this planet? It's long. It's a lot of days, a lot of days. Do you ever think about like, how many of those days did you masturbate? Out of 21,738, how many times did you masturbate? I'm going to work on that number because I think once I get past starting at about 12 years old, 13 years old, it's a lot. old. It's a lot. What have I put my body through in 21,738 days? How many places have I lived? How many people did I meet? How many people did I date? How many people that have gone through my

life? How many? Oh my God. 21,738. It's crazy. It's crazy. My brain's a little worn out. That's a lot. It's a lot of days to be awake, isn't it? When was my earliest memory? When did that start? I don't know. I don't know why I got hung up on it, but I was just curious. And I think it was driven by the idea that I didn't feel like I'd accomplished enough that somehow or another, I decided in the last day or two that I'm wasting time. And then I looked at that number, 21,738. How much, how much of that was just me sitting around thinking I wake up now, granted I'm alone. I've got cats that have needs, uh, occasionally kits around, but like for the most part, I'm

a solo operation and 21,730 days. Some people make movies. They spend years doing a thing. They build things. They're like, look what I built. look what i built it's a it's a whole building look i built a house look i made this piece of art that's in a park look look what i made i made a car from scratch look i look it's a pizza i made a pizza that one's a little less impressive but what did i make 21 738 days i've talked a. I've talked a lot. I've talked a lot. I've taken a few pictures.

I've, uh, I've appeared in some things, but man, I gotta, I gotta build a building or something, man. 21,738 days. How much of that was I just thinking about the same shit that I always think about? How many hours of the 21,738 days alive on this planet was I just thinking the same fucking things I think all the time? I got to break out, man. I think it was just one. I wanted a number to sort of judge myself against in terms of you know time spent because I can burn through a day man with not much to not much to show for it except maybe a a baked potato or a nice cabbage salad just burn through it but then I'm kind of thinking like

is that a problem I mean what am I going to do when I don't want to work anymore? Some days I feel like that's on the horizon. Is there anything wrong with utilizing your day in a way that just all you have to show for it is, I had some fun thinking about some stuff and I made this nice salad and I hiked up the hill. Is there anything wrong with that day? What do I owe the fucking world? 21,738 days. How much of that was spent beating the shit out of myself?

How many hours? How much of that was fun? How much of that was high? It's wild, man. When you put a number on it, you put a number on it. There it is. That's how many days. And I'm not number on it, you put a number on it. There it is. That's how many days. And I'm not even thinking about how many days do I have left.

Brooke Shields is here. The documentary Pretty Baby, Brooke Shields, is now available to stream on Hulu. And it's great. And she's great. And I couldn't have been more excited to talk to somebody. This week, I'm very excited to talk to Brooke Shields. And I was excited for Thursdays too. But that's not what's happening now. Right now, it's Brooke Shields time. Here we go. Be honest. When was the last time you thought about your current business insurance policy? If your existing business insurance policy is renewing on autopilot each year without checking out Zensurance, you're probably spending more than you need.

That's why you need to switch to low-cost coverage from Zensurance before your policy renews this year. Zensurance does all the heavy lifting to find a policy, covering only what you need. And policies start at only $19 per month. So if your policy is renewing soon, go to Zensurance and fill out a quote. Zensurance, mind your business. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+.

We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. Will I die here? beyond that an epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by james clavelle to show your true heart just to risk your life will i die here you'll never leave japan alive fx's shogun a new original series streaming february 27th exclusively on disney plus 18 plus subscription required t's and c's apply But like I get totally invested. I can't watch shows where animals, it's very hard for me to watch.

To me, and there's, you know, anthropomorphism. I do that absolutely. All the time. All the time. All day long with these cats. All day long. All day long. I do it with cats. My dog was a talker. Oh, yeah. And she'd, All the time. All the time. All day long with these cats. All day long. All day long. I do it with cats.

My dog was a talker. Oh, yeah. And she'd, mm-mm, all the time. And I've got this one video, and I don't know, it just worked out perfectly. And I said, do you love me? And she went, uh-huh. And I was like, oh, my God, she speaks. She gets it, yeah.

Miracle dog. Oh, anyway. I'm glad I had honest vets. Because sometimes they'll just drag it on. Because I've been in situations with these animals where I'm giving them, you know, IV fluids. It's a nightmare. Well, it's fine. I mean, I went the opposite way.

You know, I was like, oh, maybe we can, because she had a tumor on her spine. Yeah. And by the time we found it, it was massive and it just stopped her back legs from working. But it was one day she was fine. The next day she was dragging her hind legs. And I'm going, well, what about those little wheelies? And my husband was like, babe, she's waking up in her own excrement. That's not the way. Yeah. There's at some point you have to draw this line and it's sort of like, it's an animal and it's had a good run. Well, I went back and of course obsessively

started looking at all videos and of her leaping into the pool and running on the beach and I thought, you know what? That's how she lived. So we gave her that and now it's, you know, but boy, I mean, anyway, but hey, I'm here.

You're okay. And I think it's being a steward, having stewardship of an animal into passing is better. It's better than it being hit by a car or letting it suffer. Yeah, absolutely. And also you see their little faces and then they, it does. They relax them. They don't look like. No.

That they're no they just themselves like oh you know what i mean like they look they actually when the whatever i don't know their life goes out of yeah they just they like she didn't look like herself anymore i mean same thing happened with my mom when i saw my mom die did you have your mom put down i put my mom down too yeah but i didn't i didn't bother with the first shot. I just went for the second shot. And when it does, there's like something that happens and you're, they're not there anymore. Yeah. I definitely can witness that. So wait, so you were there when your mom died? I was, I had this, I insisted on sort of staring at her cause I was not present for my father's death. It wasn't. Was that before? Yes.

It was about, I don't know, it's 18, 19 years ago, three weeks before my daughter was born. Did he die suddenly? No, but he had prostate cancer, which is just infuriating. Because you can catch that one. Yeah. But he was of the school of, oh, no, I'm not going to go to doctor no one's going in there something yeah yeah yeah well there's no one going in there and nope yeah not there and so anyway that by the time they found it it was very late and and uh so i saw i thought okay well i'm my mom's only daughter so i sat there and you know you think it's going to be

like in the movies yeah with the sigh and they're just you know they look whatever I mean you know she had had her mouth open for about a week by that point and she you know she started the and then the teeth would close and it was just a horror movie organ failure I like and like her her breathing was real heavy yeah like every breath was like that but she would not breathe for a while and then she'd gasp open and then shut her teeth together really tight it was just it was horror it was just i mean it was one of those things and and the night before she had had before she died all these nurses came in and it was during

hurricane sandy and we had lost power and I was sort of stuck uptown. And I was just—and slept in bed with her. And they gave us these little pill cups, like in One Flow Over the Cuckoo's Nest. And they had given me a bottle, and it had three-quarters water in it. And they kept saying, you've got to hydrate. You've got to hydrate. And I said, all right, all right, all right, I'll hydrate. My God, I'm not— I chugged this thing down.

They had smuggled in fluff vodka. Yeah. And given me a whole Poland spring bottle filled with fluff vodka for some reason. What's fluff vodka? It's like the cotton candy flavor or like cake flavor. Oh, yeah. Marshmallow fluff? Yeah.

Like that. Okay. And they were like, huh? Huh? We got your back? And I was like, yeah. They put some by my mom. Thanks for the horrible thing.

Yes, by my mom's lips. Her lips clamped down on that little fluff vodka like her life depended on it. Oh, she loved it? Yeah. It all came back? I was like, it's not going to kill her. So that was her last. Her last drink?

Her last drink, her last meal. Her last drink. Her last drink. Her last meal. Well, you know, I watch a documentary and it's like it's difficult when I see, you know, it becomes tricky. Like, so what are we going to talk about? I know. Because it's all there. But there was stuff, though.

For your mother's death and how she played so heavily into your life as this, you know, guiding force for better or for worse. I mean, you kind of talked about it a little bit in the film, but were you detached when she was dying? Detached? Oh, God, I don't know. I think I was doing that self-defense thing where you, the defensive mechanism where you're playing a role. Yeah. All of a sudden I was like the child by the dying mother. Right. Because it was this, I just went in and I just, I wanted so much to be present because I didn't want to miss anything.

The thing is she was not there for such a long time. She had dementia? She had dementia, yeah. Yeah. My dad just started that. Oh. dementia? She had dementia, yeah. Yeah. My dad just started that. Oh. Seems exciting. It's very exciting.

It's very fun, and it's great when they don't know your name. I'm waiting for that. And you get mad at them. But my mom, she would do things like heat soup up on the open flame, but in the ceramic bowl.

Oh, yeah. And I'd be like, Mom, that's not right. She's like, ah, fuck the middleman. Yeah. So she actually knew what she was doing.

Yeah, she was, that was her way of going through the world, you know, so. She'd said that before about other things? Oh, always. Yeah.

Always, always fuck the middleman. And, you know, all the nurses had all these stories about her. Uh-huh. You know, they were arguing whether she was more Dominican

or more Cuban or, you know, she was one of theirs. They were having these like, I call her Tarrytown. I call her Mike T. She said I had a beautiful smile. No one ever told me that. I mean, it was like she had this whole life with these. At the hospital.

At the home. In random fragments of niceness and whatnot. And she registered with people. Like, that's what she did, you know? So right up till the end. Yeah. She was charismatic and connected. Oh, yeah.

And she was the, well, and it was Halloween during Hurricane Sandy. Yeah. I mean, she's like, fuck you, I'm Hurricane Terry, you know? Like, I'm not going out. You know, she was abroad. Yeah, right.

Yeah, yeah. She was a figure, you know? But how do you feel now? Do you miss her? I miss parts of her. I don't miss the worry. I don't miss the alcoholism. I don't miss the burden of being everything to her, you know.

And she never turned into the sweet little old grandmother that was going to be able to. No, I mean, she's the woman who filled the bathtub up and my two-year-old daughter was running around naked and she got locked out of the house. Yeah. You know. She's a monster to the end. Yeah. Well, if you had given me a key, I was like, well, no, that wouldn't have helped, Mom. Oh, my God.

You would have left the key inside and you would have killed me. But this is before she was sick. be able to, I was like, well, no, that wouldn't have helped mom. He would have left the key inside and you would have killed it. But this is before she was sick. This is as we were realizing something was amiss. Yeah. Well, one thing I like, I realized like when I saw you for the first time and I was like, oh my God, Brooke Shields, I feel like I've known you my whole life. That like in retrospect, after watching the documentary, I'm like, oh God, that's what

everyone says to her. Well, but you know what? It's like, I'm like the oh, God, that's what everyone says to her. Well, but you know what? It's like I'm like the people imprint on me, but they don't even know it. It's just I'm part of like the zeitgeist of an era of someone's life. And they don't realize it, that it's there. Like almost a constant in a way. I mean, God, I've 56 years. Right.

I had no idea really until I watched until I put it all into context, just how huge you were, a presence in the culture. Like, everyone knew you. Brooke Shields. And it was this huge projection at different times for different reasons. I know. But when did you see, like, that's interesting to me because, and I'm not bragging, but I dated, I married a model. It didn't go well, but I realized when I met her, because she was going into comedy and she'd gotten out of that racket because it was, it's a horrible life in a lot of ways, modeling, and it's dangerous to some women,

just in terms of how they manage their personal, their body. It's sick. Yeah. And, but so I was happy she got out. But the idea of this natural gift of beauty being this kind of tabula rosa for people to just, you know, make their own in some weird way, to project almost, you know, anything, whether it's sexual or not onto, and I mean, that's the job of it. But I mean, when did you, because it seems like in the documentary, you've had to kind of backload a lot of information as you learned it as an older person about your situation. But when did you know that, that you were just this blank page in a way, just this thing that represented beauty, but everyone was going to make you what they want to. I mean, I think I was subtly realizing it all along the way, but just probably couldn't articulate it. Yeah. Because, but the problem was I was also getting approval for it. Right. So that's very fueling and it's enough as a little girl, you're liked, right? Yeah. If they

say, you know, if you're pretty or you do a good job. I guess that as a little girl, you're liked, right? If they say, you know, if you're pretty or you do a good job, I guess that's right. Right. You're liked, you know, and you get, you get invited back, you know? And I think that that I was, I thrived on that because I wanted to be a good girl and I wanted to please everybody. And also like, but your mom at that point when you were like, I mean, you started when you were a baby, but I mean, like, at that point when you were like, I mean, you started when you were a baby, but I mean, like even when you were five or six or whatever, was she scary? Yet? She didn't, you know, I think that she was just so bohemian that we were always around

like a lot of really- Is that code for a bad parent? I think it's probably, I mean, she had this weird sense of like she just took me everywhere you know and I mean we were going when I was like seven or eight we went to see Rocky Horror Picture Show at a gay bar right all you know guys in cages and she was that mom and she was you know that's sort of a singular thing it wasn't like you'd go to these places there were several other moms doing that no no she and the fact that other mothers would let her take their kids oh really um so she was just she was always larger than life yeah um but i don't think i realized it until sort of i was about in my by the time i did my

first intervention which was 13 yeah 13 i was 13 when you did that oh yeah yeah my first but do you think like in looking back on it that there was some sort of order to, you know, a set? It saved my life. Because, like, yeah. I mean, everybody knew where I was at all times. I was completely safe. Yeah. I was accounted for.

Yeah. I was fed. You know, I, they had to. People were nice to you? People were nice to me. Yeah. And I had a routine. and you got a piece of paper and you had to look look at those lines and that's what you did and you had a piece of

paper for every day and then someone would take you to school yeah yeah in the trailer exactly and you had timed meals and there was something so uh just safe about it it must have been whereas being a kid in New York with a mom who was a single mom who drank, you never knew what you, what. I mean, it wasn't, I wasn't fearful. I mean, she never hit me. No. There was no. No?

That's good. No, not. Were there men in and out of the house kind of deal? Not really. Oh, yeah. I mean, she. You were it. I was it.

And then she sort of found one person who kind of was more of a provider. And I knew she, I was like, that can't be your type. I mean, you can't go from dad to that. But he was generous and took us on trips. What is that, old man? Presents. No, he was just a, he just, he wasn't very attractive. But he was very loving to me and he it was nice, and he was generous.

He gave me stuff all the time. And I think my mom just sort of thought, okay, this is going to be helpful for a little while. Well, I like it that she was so practical about everything. She'd really given up on, you know, I guess passion and joy to a degree. I also think she was a you-can't-fire-me-I-quit person. Yeah, a fuck-you person. Yeah, and, like, she wasn't going to let herself be hurt. thing she was a you can't fire me i quit person you know she was not a person yeah and like she wasn't gonna let herself be hurt i mean she she divorced my father without even telling him

she went to mexico well well what was this the back story on that he didn't want the baby no it wasn't even that he but he she didn't want to get an abortion first of all Then she, he thought that the whole thing was going to be taken care of. Because they weren't married. No. It was just a fling. You know what? I think it was a really good weekend. Right.

And I think she was like a heat-seeking missile. Yeah. And she was nine years older than he was. And he was just. He was a pretty guy. Oh, he was just beautiful. Yeah. I mean, he was an Adonis.

Yeah. And she just fell really, really hard. And I think she got pregnant, I think, that weekend or whatever. Maybe that first encounter, I don't know. And she kind of got her hooks into him. And then when she told him that she was pregnant, then he thought, well, I can't do that. I can't have a child out of wedlock. And this is going to ruin my reputation. What was his family like?

Very blue blood, Upper East Side, waspy, you know, pen. His mother was a princess in Rome. An Italian princess? Yeah, Rome, like real deal princess. And he was sort of raised half that way. And then his father was a number one tennis player in the world. Did you know that guy? And I knew him when I was two. I think by the time I was three, he died. But he was also an actor under contract at Paramount. This tennis playing

Italian guy? Not Italian. He was Irish. Yeah. Irish English. You know, a gorgeous six, seven. An Irish English actor tennis player. Yeah. Huh. You know, a gorgeous 6'7". An Irish-English actor-tennis player. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, go figure. Then you ended up with a tennis player. Yeah. I'm just wondering what the imprints are on that.

Well, the toast was really easy for my father at that point. He had a Davis Cup medal, and it was like, oh, everybody was just like, you're welcome, Dad. Yeah. Wow. But have you tracked that lineage of royalty? Yeah. You have?

I did. They do that. It's not 23 and Me. It's Who Do You Think You Are? That television show that started at the BBC. And then Lisa Kudrow did it here in America. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember.

And they charted my DNA and they said, do you have any questions about your past? And I said, yeah, is this true about my dad's lineage? Like, come on, everybody. I mean, everybody's royalty in Italy. And what does that mean? And we have five stars on our crest and all this. And my mom was Newark, right? That's it.

That's a category on itself, Newark. Newark. And you have to say it like that. And I was, you know, I've been straddling that bizarre fence probably my whole life. But was there a moment where you're like, where are the jewels? Oh, no. I confronted my father one day because there was this palazzo. It was beautiful.

And we all owned a portion of it. Yeah. And he sold off my part. Before. Oh. And I said, Dad, Dad, I'm the first grandchild. There had to have been something in there. And he goes, well, no, not anymore.

We need to buy this house in Long Island. And I was like, oh, okay. No palazzo, huh? No palazzo, no. Do you have royal cousins and stuff? Yeah. I mean, one of them is getting married this summer. You're in touch?

Yes, we are in touch. But it was one of those things where I was like, okay, that's what I want to know about my dad's side. And what I want to know about my mom's side is I hate my grandmother. I've always hated her. And I know that, but I would like to understand so that maybe I can take the hate out of my heart and have some sort of empathy or understanding. This is your mom's mom? Yeah, my mom's mom. What would you find out?

Wretched. What would you find out? That when she was nine, she had to quit school and take care of her three siblings. Younger siblings? Younger siblings. At nine? At nine. In Newark?

In Newark. And on her watch, one of her siblings drowned. And, you know, the guilt that comes from that. And then she, you know, never went to school. She was planning on going to school and actually having some kind of a career. And she got married, had three children. He died when my mom was nine. And she once again was stuck with three children. And then my mom gets out and we have a Mercedes. You know what I mean? And that's hateful. And I mean, we paid for everything. So you knew this woman as an old woman and she

was awful. She was awful. But it's a sad story. Were you able to achieve empathy? Yes, because her whole life was kind of usurped by tragedy, and she didn't have the education to really. And I can see how all of a sudden your granddaughter is a movie star and lives in New York City. And your daughter. Why wouldn't you resent them? Yeah. And so then you've got one daughter that stays in Newark and takes care of her, basically.

Sure. We're paying for most of it. Yeah. I'm working and paying for most of it. So you're taking care of her as well? Mm-hmm. And she just never wanted to give my mom any credit. I would say, oh, grandma, what about that nice new mattress?

Yeah. Yes, Louise gave it to me. I was like, no, no, no. That's not the daughter who gave it to you. Your other daughter gave it to me. I was like, no, no, no. That's not the daughter who gave it to you. Your other daughter gave it to you. No, I don't think so. Was she a drinker? No.

I wonder where your mom got that. Her father. Oh, really? You figured that out? Yeah, I figured that out. And he was funny. Oh, you remember that guy too? I never met him, but the stories about him were just, I mean, she adored him.

Oh, your mom did? Yeah. It's so wild to find all this stuff out, right? Yeah. It is. Because you spend this time, and there was always this kind of public judgment of your mother. And as it became known that she was a drunk, or she had an alcoholism, I shouldn't say that, I'm a sober guy. She had alcoholism.

But, you know, there was all this judgment. sober guy. She had alcoholism. But, you know, there was all this judgment. But, you know, when you really kind of build a life around these people and see where they come from, it just opens your heart up a little bit. It does. And I mean, like one of the craziest moments in the documentary is when you see me sitting in between her and this journalist who's reading a scathing review of my mother. Right. and and i feel the need as like a 12 year old yeah to stick up for her yeah and he's like you know you've got the ready complexion of a drunk oh yeah that's right and then i say well um you know with you know better skin she has allergies and you're just like oh and they put but how the fuck are these people that put you in that position

i don't think it was okay it It was okay for them to do it. It was a very weird thing, you know, and to track, you know, the sexualization of teenagers to you, that's a bold kind of Hollywood model of what, you know, sexuality and femininity was completely changes with you to something perverse that really didn't register culturally until relatively recently. And, you know, it was sort of the Alice, you know, the Alice Little and, you know, and the sort of that or the Lolita or whatever. There was that sort of era. And I was seemingly, I mean, at the center of it. Yeah. But I mean, but you, like, I don't know that you, it was weird because you didn't strike me as somebody who, the sexuality that was put upon you was something more innocent than, like, a Lolita character.

That was more self-willed, it seemed. Well, and that's what Louis Malle said when he cast me. Oh, really? He said he didn't want a Lolita character. That was more self-willed, it seemed. Well, and that's what Louis Malle said when he cast me. Oh, really? He said he didn't want a Lolita. He didn't want a knowing child who had been in touch with her sexuality or using it as a tool or a power. Yeah.

And he wanted real innocence. And I was like a golden retriever puppy, you know, and I didn't, I mean, it took me probably because of all that you know decades to sort of get in touch with my own sexuality because it was so talked about and so and it was prohibited then i was in trouble for it and then my mother was in it was like it was such a a maelstrom but you were you were aware of all that really cognizantly? By the time I had done Blue Lagoon, I'd had enough time in front of the firing squad. And there's one interview that didn't make it to the documentary. And it's this woman

interviewing me and I'm maybe 14, 15. And she keeps asking me the same question over and over and over again. It was, don't you think you lost your childhood? Or, don't you think you've been robbed? It was that kind of a thing. And I kept saying, no. And I go to a regular school. And it's an enhanced, you know, it's my version of a hobby. I don't play sports. I make movies or whatever that was.

I answered the same question three times, maybe more. And finally, I stop and I say, excuse me. You know, with respect, I don't I say, excuse me, you know, with respect, I don't think you want my answer, ma'am. He did? And I said, you keep asking me the same question.

What's wrong with you? And I keep answering it and you want a different answer, but this is my truth. And so somewhere in my character, thank the, I don't know, God, universe, whatever. I was able to find

the ridiculousness in it. Well, it does, what's sort of astounding is that you had some kind of inner resilience to it all that because it doesn't seem at any point during, like, you know, the other path is Drew Barrymore. I know, yeah. And she's in the doc and, you know, it's unspoken, but that didn't happen to you.

You weren't, you know, taken advantage of. You didn't get strung out or fucked up on drugs, you know, which is the way of children in this business. It usually doesn't end well, but all through this thing, for whatever reason, I don't know if it was your mother or just that people looked out for you and didn't necessarily take advantage of you in that way. But you seem to have some sort of resilience and you do seem to be, you know, holding on to yourself. I thank you. And I think that a lot of it has to do with, I never moved to Hollywood. I went to regular schools. I mean, I did your mom. Yeah. My mom was just like, we're not going out there and giving you the high school equivalency test. She's like, that's just not what we're going to do. A, she never got to have an education. So it was important.

So spite was important in this. Spite. She also, my dad was at, in the beginning paying for my education and then we were able to pay for it ourselves. Right. So then that, and, you know, and really just having real people and real friends in my life and being a perfection, wanting do well in school yeah because it was so far from the entertainment industry and i was a cheerleader and i was you know when you

of course you were if you fight if you fight for it enough how is brooke shields not going to be a cheerleader oh and i was always the tallest i was always at the bottom of the freaking pyramid like people sitting on my head oh yeah yeah um, yeah. But there was convention. It was conventional. Right. And Laura Linney was your pal? Yeah, yeah. She's in the doc. She's great.

She's great. She's so, it's so funny because she's so, I was like, look at you with your cape dress and all poised and all, you know, you're an actress.

So I was like, and so she's been a long time, long term friend that, you know, I've just celebrated. I celebrate her, you know, talent and success. And yeah, trooper, right? Oh, yeah. Really? But so let's talk about those pivotal moments, though. So you're doing the before anything, really, the first wave of of attention was problematic was because of that Louis Mal movie, right?

And, you know, as everyone said in that film, in the documentary, like, that could never be made today. Not without horrendous scrutiny, not even in Europe. But in retrospect, I mean, not that it matters, but I mean, how do you I mean not that it matters but I mean how do you feel about that movie? I think it's possibly the only really beautiful film I've ever

been in yeah I mean it's extraordinary yeah and so much so that I wrote my thesis on it

I you wrote your thesis on your movie? on my movie and La Comunicien which is another film of Louis Mel's yeah that is has a

very similar theme of loss of innocence um that was during the war and a young young man joining the resistance um uh and and so and that that thematically it was just such an interesting concept for me this loss of innocence you know know, and what that voyage looks like, when, and how is it shown cinematically, and to just really break down. And at Princeton, you couldn't major in film. And so I was adamant about sort of, you know, I'm going to make a difference in the system, you know. Sure.

And so I found a way. I was a French lit major, and I found a way then to sort of bring in the film and looking at it in a literary way. How did you handle your performance in your thesis? I didn't really critique my performance other than what he wanted he got, which was not slick, not learned. was not slick, not learned, not, you know, it was, I mean, the sad part about it was that I also didn't really learn too much. Yeah. And it would have been a really wonderful. Oh, in terms of as an actress?

Yeah, it would have been a wonderful environment to learn from someone like him. Sure, but he just wanted you to be you. He just wanted me to be me, which, you know, sort of set me on that path. And basically that theme kind of continued for many years. But there is something to it. You know, you're not, it's not like you're, you know, you're not shallow person. So whatever you are, it seems to be pretty, it comes through all the time. And it's just a variation, right?

Yeah. I mean, you seem to be kind of the same person, but you've grown up, obviously. Yeah. But there is a consistency to it. Yeah, and I appreciate that, too. Yeah, it's amazing. So I look at that movie, and I just, I'm so proud. I think Endless Love was probably one of the only other beautiful films that I've made.

I mean, I think that Black and White was a movie I was very proud of, completely improv and Robert Downey Jr. and it was like a crazy, crazy cast. But, you know, those were European

directors and they had, they, it was art. They weren't afraid of pushing the envelope a little bit. No,

but they expected the most and there's something that I thrived on with that and was so sort of disappointed everywhere else, you know. Yeah, well, I could see that because you were this fundamentally American property somehow. I was America's sweetheart. Yeah, right.

Kind of, right? Yeah. I was called that. You were, you were. And then, you know, you're a face of a decade. It's so bizarre. But it's great that you have that distance. Like, you know, there's no, not anywhere in the doc or the arc of your personal history that's like, well, that was when Brooke really lost it.

And she was rebelling and she did that to her hair. And you don't, you didn't have that. Do you, do you, are you sad that you didn't have that? Was there a period that you thought you know i you know i'm so sort of fundamentally a workhorse and uh i do it i go to the nth degree i play by the rules i you know so i don't really have that i think i would have been probably you know heralded and celebrated had i had some big fuck up and then i could be the underdog and come back and, you know, do something like that. Instead you just went to college and people forgot about you.

Exactly. Instead I got an education. That'll serve me. Yeah. But do you, I think, how much do you, you know, credit deep codependency to your drive? Oh, it's absolutely a meshment dependency we felt like you had like you know it's just what you did it was you were your mother's appendage and then the world's right and then you've got that what i owe my fans and what i owe the press when did you start feeling that oh that was just always put on me it was my mom was like now listen yeah you know every single autograph you sign it's one person and's, and they are individual and you have to, so, you know, I, I would She really asked you to show up for these people.

Oh yeah. And, and. It's exhausting. It's exhausting and it's constant and it's never enough and you don't, and it's not really directly proportionate. And you're a kid. So like, you know, if that's starting when you're 12. Oh yeah. And you're a kid, so if that's starting when you're 12, so how was she handling your downtime so you don't burn out? I think we had a lot of fun.

I mean, I also took it upon myself to say I was their bubble. I was the bubble on the set. I was the funny one. I danced and sang, did songs and stuff. We went to see movies. We went to see movies. We went to see theater. We traveled. You did New York. We lived in the city.

I mean, I was born and raised. How were you going to Studio 54 at how old were you? 15, 16. And not seeing all kinds of insanity. You saw it, but somehow I was like a mascot. It was like I was the boss's daughter or something. Like, you know, saw the bag,

but the bag never got to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was almost as if like... People looking out for you again. They were all looking out for me and Steve Rubell like put the word out like she is not to be fucked with.

Yeah. And it's not even... She wants to come. She dances for like an hour and a half. I'd pick the best dancer. And, you know, I was home by 11.30. You know, and then I'd bring my girlfriends.. And, you know, I was home by 1130, you know,

and then I'd bring my girlfriend. You are so lucky you didn't get alcoholism. I'm probably on my way now. But I mean, like if you like, you know, somehow or another, I'm still trying to figure out how you had this, you know, this kind of a personal integrity that didn't make you needy. Your neediness was not driving you. I also was really afraid of lack of control. And so. That's what happens when you have an alcoholic mother. Yeah. Either you're going to be an alcoholic or you're going to be a complete control freak.

Absolutely. And so that I chose that because I had to keep her alive. Right. So I was hyper vigilant all the time. That's it. That's what it is. Peripheral all the time. That's the answer. And so I would, you know, I call it a broadcast news moment, but when Holly Hunter pulls out the plug of the phone and she quickly cries like crazy and then she plugs the phone back in and she picks it up. And that's what I would do.

I would do that. I would like go into the hotel bathroom and like sit under the sink and cry really fast and then be like, okay, that's done. That's wild because that's what it is. That answers the question. I'm sitting here like, how are you so resilient? How'd you have your shit together? You're just sort of like, I'm managing everything all the time. I'm on top of it.

Yeah. I mean, because without that, all hell was going to break loose. What was going to happen? And, you know, you take that on as a kid and you just take it on. And that's what I... Yeah, you don't even know.

It's how you're wired. Yeah. And then it made me, you know, I was an overachiever. You know, I had to get straight A's. It wasn't for my mom or my dad. You know, they'd be like, give yourself a little bit of a break. I'd be like, no. Yeah. I had to get straight a's it wasn't for my mom or my dad you know they'd be like give yourself a little bit of a break i'd be like no yeah i have to get away yeah yeah it's just it was that my that was my addiction right you know that was my form of addiction well that

type that kind of like you know the the yeah the the codependency perfectionism thing it's rough man you know because you do eventually hit a bottom. Yeah. And it's exhausting. Yeah. But like eventually you're just depleted. But like, let me ask you a question before we get

to that. Like, you know, because I'd forgotten the Calvin Klein ads. I knew you were, I remember that billboard in New York because I was,

I used to go visit my grandmother in Jersey when I was in high school. I come from New Mexico and it was somewhere around, there was still one of the smoking billboards around. Oh, yeah. You remember that from New Mexico and it was somewhere around, there was still one of the smoking billboards around. Oh, yeah.

You remember that blue smoke rings? Yours was somewhere up around there and then the one with the smoke rings was there in Times Square. Like, I remember that, but I don't really remember registering, you know, those ads where you're posing and stuff. Now, obviously, you know,

there's a segment of him, of Calvin talking about it, of him knowing that he was sexualizing you and being cute about it. Now, do you have any resentment around that stuff? Oh, God, no. I mean, it was the first time I was ever able to actually combine acting and modeling. Right. And it was so stressful, the dialogue.

It was really well done. I mean, you really nailed it. I mean, I worked so hard on that. Did you have a coach? No, but Avedon was directing, and he was such a perfectionist as well. He's a genius. Did you work with him a lot? I did a lot, all my vote covers.

Yeah. So you had a work with him a lot? I did a lot. Many, all my Vogue covers. Yeah. So you had a relationship with him. Yes, yes. And we had, we, he liked me because I was well behaved. I did the job. We had a very good communication. I knew exactly what he meant when he did whatever, cocked his head a certain way. Sure, sure.

And so it's just a very, he was an artist as well. Sure, I know. The American West book is one of my favorite books. And I was fascinated with the darkness and light. Like it was always so interesting to me. It was very, it was incubated. We went, it was, nobody else was allowed in. There weren't stylists, hairdressers, nobody.

It was just us. And it was hard work. For the shoot? For shoots, for photo shoots. Any of them. The Calvin Klein took days and days. But those were live action, right? Yeah.

And those were memorized. You know, that minute-long commercial was memorized. Yeah. And it was just you and Richard. Yeah. Yeah. And it was just you and Richard. Yeah. Huh. And, you know, we had a great team of people that were writing it. Right, sure.

And I think, I even think, could it be Delia Efron that helped write the copy? And so the copy was beautiful. Yeah. The sort of the hidden meaning in all of it was so smart to me. You know, I was a junior, I guess, in high school, or maybe a little bit younger. But, you know, that type of using your brain at the same time was sort of, it was a revelation to me.

Right. So you weren't really thinking about how you were being used necessarily. No. You were just doing the script and doing the pose and physicalizing. Yeah. Oh, so you knew that. You're selling. Absolutely.

Now, okay, did I clock that the camera was panning up my thigh? It was for jeans. Okay. No, no, I get it. But you knew you were selling. Yeah, you knew you were. Did you always know that as a model? I mean, I was holding up, you know, Love's Baby Soft.

At the beginning. You know, who loves Baby Soft and, you know, color-corrected bottles. But when you're just doing general, like, you know, covers or when you're not holding things up, there's an art to it, isn't there? That's something beyond selling. It's a natural thing. I get it.

It's a, well, covers are very different. Covers are very sort of an intimate way of, you know, the insides are, you're selling clothes and you have to sort of make it a certain way. But the cover is, way of, you know, the insides are, you're selling clothes and you have to sort of make it a certain way. But the cover is, was always, you know, you're looking down the barrel of something and really it's just you and the photographer. And it's, it's, um, it's very intimate and, and very, um, it's otherworldly. But do you think like, like, It's otherworldly. But do you think like, is it not your nature to sort of be critical of how you were being used?

I mean, now I can look at it. I can look back at it and say, but in by the, I'm not being a Pollyanna about it, but I am saying like, that's what the business is. It's not like you're, you know, it's like you can't, you don't get to have it both ways. You know, you don't. No, no. And it wasn't like, and you have a very successful career. Why are you going to be like, you know, fuck that campaign? It was like it changed the world.

It was like an atomic bomb. We also got to, you know, got to move into a house. And we bought a car. And like, so it's always so directly proportionate to making life better. Did you maintain a relationship with Calvin Klein? Oh yeah. I, um,

I had to do a few episodes of a serious before my podcast, but a serious, and he came on and he was so cute because he, you know, it was about 25 minutes or something. And after that I said, Oh, you know,

thank you. And he's like, that's it. And I said, yeah, because I, I planned on being here like an hour and I said I was like and you know it was nice for me to hear later how how he did attribute that to changing his entire career well of course yeah you know and and what happened was I didn't get renewed for the second second year yeah and I my feelings were really hurt. I thought I'd failed because it was a two-year contract. Right.

And they didn't do the second year. And evidently it was from what I was told about the fact that I became so identified with. So people were going in and saying, can we get the Brooke Shields jeans? And that was not the point. You know, he needed them. It needed to be Calvin Klein jeans, which is obvious. Right. And then like, I can't remember how, what the evolution of the Calvin Klein ads were, but they, they continued to be provocative, but they used Marky Mark for a while. Oh yeah. And then there was the wood paneling weird kind of rec room period.

Right. And Kate Moss, you know, was in a lot of those. I mean, he was always provocative. Yeah, yeah. And he wasn't pretending to not be. Yeah. You know, that's always what's so interesting is you, you know, to do a movie about the Red Light District in New Orleans in the early 1900s, you know what you're doing the movie about. Well, I think what the issue is now is we're looking at it through a contemporary lens that's sort of, you know, kind of redefining cultural perception, right?

Like, you know, it was all different then. It was all, there was a lot more permissiveness. There was less regulation around, you know, moral attitudes and there was more art in general. So, you know, there was, and everything's very cut and dry now and everything. And this was New York, you know, in the 70s. Of course, and it was great. I mean, it was great, you know, but looking through the contemporary lens, I imagine, you know, that have you had run ins with feminist ideologues around how they perceived you? You know, not as much so more like Christian groups like that was it because there was something about my reaction to all of it that feminists have actually been positive about. You owned it.

Owning it and not becoming a victim. Right, right. And understanding and owning who you were and being, and not sort of just saying, look, you're the one that has the problem with this. But you weren't a victim. You know, it's, yeah, you weren't a victim because your mother was sort of, although she kind of put you into this, she always took care of you to a degree. I always felt loved. I always felt protected. You didn't turn into a mess? No. You know, it wasn't a tragic story. No. And I think that that's what I've learned to,

I'm not ever going to be a tragic story. It's just, it's not an option. I don't not, it doesn't matter what shit happens or what, you know what you go through. It's really, how do you go through your life? How are you going to choose to go through it? Well, yeah, and you're fortunate to have this horrendous perfectionism streak and constant need to control everything. And that's been letting go of that over time, not fully, obviously. Well, it's funny that the one point you go, because I got sensitive to it, you know, outside of, you know, a very bad thing that happened to you. But the real dip where you start to feel like, oh, I feel bad for Brooke is when you're kind of out of college and you got to do like local commercials. It's just torture. And I was like 20 pounds heavier. I had like,

you're doing the dancing and everything. Bad hair. And I, I didn't know, I thought it was over. I didn't know what to do. So you were taking any job. I was,

I had to, we had a townhouse in New York city and a big house in New Jersey. What were those conversations with your mother? Like, you know what? We didn't, we was just like, all right,

there's this Nescafe commercial being shot in Italy, but it's going to be dubbed into Japanese and they want you. And I didn't have an agent. So it could be somebody that she met on the plane. Some Japanese businessman she met on the plane and before you know it i'm doing you know whatever that thing was where i was on the pedestal it was so like there was no quality in anything but we needed the money but okay so you don't but again you you you saw that as a necessity and you and you don't resent the situation because you were in a partnership and you but you knew that we need money we need money and also i always i had this degree so i intellectualize from college you know i'd graduated with what's the great french french lit oh yeah and and that you know that was going to be my i was going to carry that like like my armor and and i started intellectualizing everything and and going to therapy more and studying acting. And I thought, you know, this is what it's going to take.

You know, this is what they call being an artist. And I just threw myself into that because I didn't know what else to do. Was this the time where you had the horrible rape? Yes. Yep. Yeah, I was doing it. I was going to say something else, but I realized we can just say rape. Yeah.

It's taken me decades to even call it that. Because you talked to Gavin DeBecker, who was your security guy since you were a kid, huh? Yeah. You must have started him in the business. He was before he had his full company, and I was 13. I was, he was before he had his full company and I was 13 and he, you know, he had sort of taken care of Elizabeth Taylor as a kid and Rosemary Clooney and, you know, and he had had a lot of tragedy in his life and he's just brilliant as a person. Yeah, I've reached out to him for advice before.

Oh, he's just, and a lot of people don't know how funny he is, but man, is he funny. And we, I was 13 and so he was the first call like kind of the only call so in the doc to clear it up for people yeah i mean you you talk about this it but it was it took you a long time to acknowledge it as that and you compartmentalized it somehow completely and you chose not to mention the person's name, which is unique in this particular climate. But you did finally acknowledge that you were raped. I acknowledged that it was an unwanted situation. And it took me a long time to acknowledge it as assault and rape and whatever word you want to call it. Because it wasn't consensual.

And then my reaction was to just shut down. And I think that I was so, so scarred by it that I couldn't afford to acknowledge it at all. My career was in such a bad place. I was currently doing this. This was a producer? You said he might have a movie? And I thought I was currently doing. This was a producer? You said he might have a movie? And, you know, I thought I was getting a job. And you knew the guy.

Yeah. I've known the guy forever. And I thought, oh, this is how it's going to happen. It's going to be my turn. It's going to, yeah. Yeah. Heartbreaking, yeah. Now they know I'm an actress.

They're going to, you know. Oh, my God. And then to go back to this, like, really shitty movie that I was doing where the, I can't even remember the name of it, but it was one of those movies that never sees the light of day. It probably just goes to VHS at that point.

And, you know, the lead guy did all his lines in Italian and I did all my lines in English. And I'm just, that happened and I'm going back to this set and I just feel like such a joke. I feel like I'm just a loser and I'm just, that there is, it's not, and don't, you know, I'm done. It's, I was over. Yeah.

And it just, it really broke me. But then I thought, okay, well then I'm going to get better. But what did you do to treat it? Were you, did you think you were in PTSD looking back on it? Or did you just, you know, you compartmentalize it? How did you? Compartmentalize it. And I, I talked it, talked about it and through therapy, just ad nauseum and had to go through the sort of stages, you know, there, it's almost like the stages of grief. I had to take the... I put a lot of blame on myself.

I put... I justified everything. It must have been my fault. And DeBecker was the one who told you that it was assault? Yeah, he wanted me immediately to just blow it out of the water and make a huge international case.

And I was like, Gav, I can't get much lower than this, but I can tell you that I will never work again because nobody's going to believe me. And I couldn't afford it. I could not afford it emotionally. So I just chose to do the work with a therapist and really just learn how your body processes information. And was part of your therapy to confront the perp?

I had done that on my own. I had written a long letter and never heard anything back. And why the choice even now in the climate we live in not to call the guy out? Because you know what? It would be then about him. And this is my experience to own on my own. And the way the press works and the way people work, it doesn't matter. Sure.

You know what I mean? It really doesn't matter who it is, but that it would matter. Grist. Yeah. Yeah. It would be a headline. And so I'm not giving that. Yeah. Why?

Yeah. Why be? Because then you just be part of this story that you've unleashed. And, you know, and I've done, again, so much work and I'm interviewing this Dr. Bedera who talks about this, that writing a letter is a very common thing that happens. And that there are ways of compartmentalizing, ways of shutting down. You go into a, it's not even fight or flight. She calls it another, something else I can't remember right now, but it's this, it's what the brain does and how the brain reacts to a situation that is a place you don't want to be in.

Yeah. And how you have to survive. It's like a paralysis almost. Something shuts down. Absolutely. You just think, okay, just stay alive. Right. And get out.

And so it was so... It's literally like playing dead under a dead body. Yeah, it's actually, it's a good metaphor. Very good metaphor. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and if you, there's no point in, you know, I didn't know if I was going to mention it in the doc. And then I thought, I can't be this honest about absolutely everything.

Yeah. I'm the mother of two daughters. Right. And not at least say, listen, this, this, you know, this shit happens and it can't anymore. How did they take it? My older daughter knew. She beat it out of me one night. She just, she got wind, she figured something out.

We were with a lot of people and she just kind of clocked something and then she just hammered me and i said okay i'm gonna sit you down i'm gonna tell you how old was she um this was just a couple years ago and my younger one was clueless and until the documentary and i um i didn't warn her and i i just i don't know why i didn't think to warn her. And she got up in the middle of the screening and ran out of the screening room crying. And I just, my husband was very upset. And I just, I thought how we live, who we are now is so healthy and happy. I mean, we're a good family. Like they're great girls. They're grown up there. You know, we have a very, um, honest, you know, life. I, but I had put it behind me and I guess, and she just said, mom, nothing you say is going

to make me feel better about this. So it's just going to take time. I don't want to see anybody hurt my mom. And I said, I love you. I appreciate that. I'm so sorry that I didn't warn you and I didn't prepare you. This will end up being hopefully good for the world. Sure. As just being an advocate for people that maybe don't feel like they have the voice. I refused to become the poster child for it.

Sure. And she, you know, she got it. She's going to come to the premiere probably just because she wants to be on the red carpet. 16. Yeah. She will be 17 very soon. Well, I imagine growing up in the world that they're growing up in and, you know, having a definition at that age of predator, toxic masculinity, you know, abuse, that they know all that stuff. And it's terrifying, I would imagine. And then to hear your mom just that it happened to you.

Yeah. I mean, it would be like even picture what we picture yourself with your crazy mother protecting her all the time. Like, you know, the idea of helplessness and, and, you know, and, and what we were, you know, I was from the time with my, you know, my mom lost a baby. And when I lost my first child, I, I kind of knew it, but I didn't know she could not come clean and tell me. And I thought, wow, that's interesting. I hope I'm able to be honest with my children in the future when they need it. Well, it's tricky because you have to protect them as well.

I mean, it's a negotiation, I guess, you would have to make. I don't have kids, but I imagine you have to weigh it out. Yeah, and also I tried to weigh it out yeah and you also i made it i try to make it a teaching moment you know yes this is the way your mom you know but you've got to know that these things exist yeah and you know and and don't and the victim shaming is it is such a big piece of it you know and it's so it it's a huge huge part of it and you know that old the fear of telling your story because it'll be disregarded or framed. And, you know, why did you put yourself in that position?

Kind of a way of question line of questioning. And that was a good way for me. You know, and the interesting these kids are there, you know, on the one hand, they're so woke. And then on the other, you know, that they don't want the other, they don't want to talk about these things. And they don't want yet. They're also, we had a huge discussion about all of this, about owning your own person and what they do on TikTok and how they sexualize themselves. And also there's apparently a kind of frequency in the culture that is sort of almost anti-vulnerability. Like, you know, like this idea of cringe

is really around vulnerability, which is a good thing. Yeah. So they're learning how to, you know, like to almost become deadened and almost grow up as brands. And they think that they're owning, but it's a different type of ownership.

Yeah, it's a weird thing. Yeah, it's very odd, and it doesn't, I can't quite figure out what's happening to the pendulum. Right, but also because, and also you were, before this age of social media platform, I mean, you were a brand, but somehow or another, you were kind of casually unaware of the impact,

I think, at times. I also, it was too much to really process. I mean, I would do my homework when I was in the hair and makeup chair, and they'd say, well, do you like it? And I'd just go, uh-huh, yeah, it's great. Looking at myself in the mirror was always very hard for me. It must have been weird.

It was just weird. And you can't see yourself the way other people see you. So you're just disappointed. And that's weird. And in dance class, I couldn't spot because I didn't want to look at myself in the mirror. And he would say, the teacher was like, get over yourself. Nobody cares. Yeah.

Look, spot, or you're going to fall on your ass all the time. Well, you couldn't look at yourself, even when you didn't have makeup on? Anyway, anyway, it was just don't gaze. Don't gaze at yourself. Don't look in the reflection. Oh, there was something vanity. It was vanity. Really?

I mean, that's what I interpreted as. So you were trying to work against how you were being used in a way. And how I was being like fond over. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like, you're so beautiful and you think,

I didn't do anything to look like this. Right, yeah, yeah. I can't, can I just get value from like, I went to a good school or I gave a good performance or it was just, it was never that. But eventually you became that. I mean, you know, you became this, like, hilarious actress. Thank you.

I think it's funny because you are very funny. And, you know, that's one of the great defense mechanisms is humor. Oh, it's the best. And, like, you know, it's sort of exciting that people, you know, exploited that in you later. Or that you did it yourself. I mean, I couldn't believe my luck, but I also,

I'd been fighting for it forever, you know, and just, it was my absolute happy place. You know, it just, so by the time I got Suddenly Susan, I was just, i was just soaring with joy there you go and that's you know and that was after you know your bottom was really

these like japanese commercials yeah where i'm dressed as the statue of liberty and i'm on a i'm on a big tall platform and but you know you know, I also did Grease. I went on Broadway. Yeah, it was huge. I remember that. And that was a huge... It was a big deal. Everyone was like, can she do it?

Because it was just a placement of a name. But it was that. I mean, it was the first time stunt casting really ever happened. And had it not existed, the likes of me would never have been on. I wasn't considered Broadway. Right, sure.

But you did great. I did. And I went on to do kind of amazing work on Broadway and just got so confident about it. It just felt really good because it was associated with really hard work. Yeah. So I was triggered in a good way. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, obviously we can't talk about everything, but most of it's in the doc. The Agassi thing that, you know, that seemed, is it just one of those things? Like I was somebody's, you know, a mistake. Like I was married to somebody and I really think at this point it was only for a few years and I really think she just sees it as like bad phase. Really? Yeah.

I mean, listen, he, my first husband, you know, it's like people say you marry your father or whatever that thing is. I married a very controlling person. I married an industry. I married a conglomerate, you know, and I could disappear in it. Right. And I loved it. And you needed that at the time. And I needed to be able to separate from my mom and I needed a cushion in, you know, he

took care of everything. I mean, I was, I had, by that point, we had about six houses. I mean, my mom, every time my mom traveled and we did a photo shoot or something, she would buy a ranch or, you know, buy a lake house. And we just, we had all this property and no cashflow. And so, you know, he systematically helped me sell the properties, you know, do the next and next and next and helped me separate from my mom with care and love. I mean, you know, minus when I gutted her office, which was a less than, you know, gracious thing that I did do.

But he— Oh, when you emptied the office. Yeah. And that was pretty brutal, I will say. But necessary? The only way I would have known how to do it. It was like ripping a Band-Aid off. Sure.

You know, and it was, it was not, she was never going to make it easy for me to separate. Yeah. I mean, I tried mediators. Yeah. And I tried and she just, she was so hurt. And you tried intervening with the alcoholism when you were 13 and again and again and again. And again and again. I mean, she was in multiple rehabs. Yeah, yeah.

But, you know, so you just, I, this, all of a sudden I was safe. Right. And I was childlike. Yes. And we were like little children together and we both had very strong parents. We both had reached, you know, huge fame at a young age. We had, we identified with each other. So that's like the same with Michael Jackson, too, in a way that you were all sort of suspended emotionally.

Yeah, it was a rest of development for sure. Yeah. And that stayed there. And a great deal of responsibility. Yeah. You know, and I think that that was, we saw something in the other person. Andre and I laughed a lot, too, which was really. Are you in touch still?

No. No, I thought we would be because it was not ugly. It took seven minutes. I mean, it was just. But that's not the kind of person he is. When you're out, you're out. Right. you're out. And he wrote a book, ironically called Open, in which he asked me to read all the parts I was in. And I thought that was very generous. So I spent five hours with his ghost

writer and I made sure he knew that I penned my own books. Yeah. Threw that in there. Yeah. Just had an editor, not a ghostwriter. And I said, I changed all this. He said, you know, I don't remember dates, but you have diaries and you have all this stuff. Sure. So please help fix the things I don't remember. And I said, okay. And there were many. Everything was just off.

Right. And then I got a letter, typed letter about a month later saying, thank you so much for your time. Unfortunately, I couldn't change any of the things that you that you corrected because that's not how I remember it. And it is my my book. Wow. And I was like, what? And then I told I told my publisher, my editor, and I said, can is that she said, oh, it's the oldest trick in the book. Because when you go to press, you can say, oh, yes, I gave it to her to read. And that indicates that I signed off on it. You got duped. I got duped in a big way. Oh, my God. There you go. That's enough not to talk to somebody for a while. We don't, you know what? There's so little that we have in common. Right. And also like,

look, it's, it's old news. And it's like, if you've worked through whatever resentments or are you, what do you, you know what you need it for? You don't have kids with the guy.

No, don't. And also it's like, it was exactly what I needed at that time. Sure. It's like, you know, it seemed like it.

Yeah. It was, it was really perfect. I was, I was saved. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I was saved. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

So now, you know, I didn't know anything about the postpartum depression stuff. Oh, no. No. I mean, I don't know why I would. It's not really my world of reading. No, no, I know. You know, but, you know, it did strike something in me around, you know, my mother, you know, who. Yeah, because she said to me, you know, in mother, you know, who, yeah, because she said

to me, you know, in a very glib way a few years ago, she just out of nowhere said, you know, Mark, when you were a baby, I just, I don't think I knew how to love you. And I'm like, wow. Well, that's, thank you for that piece. That answers a lot of questions. Yeah, right. But, but I, but I don't know if she was depressed or just selfish. I don't know. But I mean, but it's definitely a symptom of that. But it is a symptom. And it can be, there's such a range, you know. It's sort of like postpartum to psychosis.

You know, there's this huge range of levels of it. It's so heartbreaking, that whole part of the doc and that part of your story, because you were just so, like, you couldn't understand your mind. I couldn't understand my mind. And it's such a brilliant, any type of mental affliction or illness or irregularity or unbalance, I should say, you know, biochemically, you don't, it's speaking perfectly to you. Right. chemically, you don't, it's speaking perfectly to you. Right.

And, but for such a, but for a person who's got their shit together so aggressively. Right. You know, and to not understand something that you're generating, it's got to be the worst. It's the worst. It's taking everything that made me who I am and absolutely ripping, ripping my legs out from under me and having no tools, no knowledge and letting people down because they can't fix it. And how, so this is your first kid. My first kid.

And, you know, how long did it take you to, to learn about it and get treatment? How old was she? Do you feel like she suffered at all because of this period? I convinced myself that she was suffering because her father kind of came in and did all the... He seems like a sweet guy. He is. He's a great guy.

He's funny too. He just kind of went into mode and he had never sort of held a baby before and now he was doing it. And they have a very strong relationship and I sort of held a baby before and now he was doing it and they have a very strong relationship and i i sort of beat myself up about that for a long time you know i thought you made them bond and you you know you did this to yourself and yeah it was it just was amazing but um it only really lasted uh it took some months. It was about six months. By a year, I had found the right medication and sort of combination of things.

And so, you know, and I went through the motions of bonding with her. Do you know what I mean? It was just, I was in, I was just so unhappy. I was so desperate. You couldn't understand why your heart wasn't following suit? Yes. And why she was such a stranger to me. You know, you look at this, it comes out of your body.

Yeah. And you don't recognize it. Yeah. It doesn't, you know, I was exhausted. I had gone through IVF seven times. I lost so much blood when I gave birth to her and herniated my uterus. I mean, it was just everything that could have gone wrong. Yeah.

I thought I was going to die. They were going to give me a hysterectomy. Yeah. And so there was so much trauma that I experienced. And then I get home, and I don't know what to do with a baby. And then I get home and I don't know what to do with a baby. And I'm depleted and I'm completely biochemically imbalanced and no one knows it. They just say, you know, oh, stop breastfeeding or stop doing this.

And it's just, you just feel so helpless and scared. Was there no literature on postpartum at that time? Nobody told us anything. I told the doctor and he was like, oh, it's the baby blues. That's what they called it. That's the best they had? You'll get over it. It's just, you know, you're tired. And once you get some sleep. So it was really not a pathology at the time. It wasn't. It was, but no one talked about it. And we weren't in there. Was there a name for it? Was it was postpartum depression. Was that name there then? Yes.

Oh, okay. So what had happened was a doctor called me back and his wife was a doula. And, you know, he said, I apologize for violating the, you know, patient doctor privilege or whatever, but you really worried me. And I talked to my wife about it and she's a doula and she thinks that you are experiencing postpartum depression, and would you take medication? Of course, I said, no, I'm not going to take medication. I've never had to take medication to be fixed before. I fix myself, and I do it myself. And it was just so bleak, and everybody said, please, please, please, please, please. Oh, the pictures of you are horrendous.

I mean, you can just look like, you know, haunted, haunted. My, my mother-in-law called me. She said, I saw dead eyes and I just, well, you know, so, yeah. So I, I finally said, okay, to get everybody off my back, I'll take a pill. Clearly I'm just, you know, oh, I'm going to be an actress that takes pills now, you know? Oh, really? You had a whole life set up for yourself. Really pictured the worst of it. Oh, yeah. Of course I did. I live in the wreckage of the future.

Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah. So you took them? of the future. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah. So you took them? So I took them, started feeling better, just started feeling normal, you know, and started, you know, wanting to just wanting to be around her, you know, and the smell of the powder of the diapers didn't make my legs weak anymore. It was like, there's something so visceral about what happens biochemically. And I started just feeling just more myself. So I went off cold turkey because clearly I was a doctor by that point. Sure. And. Anyone who takes medicine is a doctor.

Is a doctor. Ostensibly, I was a doctor. And so I had a very bad episode where I thought I was going to drive my car into the wall on, I don't know, the 405. And you see it. I mean, it has pictures. And they rush. And if you close your eyes, the pictures rush into your brain. And it's terrifying.

And I was one with the phones, had the big thing that was in the car, and I called my doctor. And she said, what are you doing right now? And I said, I'm on the freeway. And she said, okay, what happened? Did you go off the medication? And I said, yes, cold turkey. And she said, how's that working out for you? And I said, this is not good.

And she said, stay on the phone with me. You're going to drive home and you're going back on immediately. She said, medicine is there for a reason. It does not mean you are weak or you are a failure or anything. Did you stop taking it in light of the Tom Cruise bullshit? No, God, no. I stopped taking it. It was before the Tom Cruise thing, because I hadn't talked about it. Publicly. Yeah, I hadn't talked about it until I wrote the book. So that was about a year, over a year later.

So this is all part of the book. Yeah. The journey of it. Yep. And then did you find, was there support groups or anything? I mean, when you wrote the book, were you talking to other people? I first talked to people and everybody denied it. Because of shame?

Yeah. Wow. And then people would come to me secretly and they would say, you know, I think my sister's struggling. Oh, my God. My wife is, you know, but it's supposed to be the most natural thing in the world. I mean, babies have been being born for quite some time. Yeah, but the funny thing is, is like, you know, more than about half of them don't turn out great. I mean, babies have been being born for quite some time. Yeah. But the funny thing is, is like, you know, more than about half of them don't turn out great. I know. There's so much.

Well, I don't like people just in general. I don't like people, but kids and I don't like other people's kids. Right. Yeah. But they, you just, and you, it's just, it's unfathomable. I didn't, I was so thrown and nobody knew. And I, you know, I broke my husband. I mean, he just, he felt so helpless. And then people started quietly saying, you know, I think I had it. I think my mom had it. It's weird about, it's like, this has been the thing in my brain lately.

It's like people who don't take responsibility for their mental problems are just spawning generations of that mental problem it never stops no you know you can't power through it and buck up but but it's like hereditary it's just almost yeah just behaviorally hereditary maybe not postpartum but in general you know if you have a problem, whether it's alcoholism or borderline or whatever. You're predisposed. I mean. Sure. Right. And you don't take responsibility for it. You're just gifting it to the next generation or at least the reaction to it, whatever that is.

And that's why I think I decided to write the book was because it was so ludicrous to me. Yeah. That this was something that people were ashamed of. I said, you know, like I didn't choose to have this. And when it helped understanding it biophysically, you know, cause then it was, then it was not my fault. Sure. But the Tom Cruise thing, that was Scientology bullshit. And you pushed back. I did. And you can see that in the movie. And I guess like to, to, to wrap it up though,

now that you have these daughters and given what you went through, I mean, you know, what are your primary concerns and what are the sort of nuggets of advice you give them in relation to how you came up in the world? Oh, gosh. I mean, we talk a lot about everything. You know, my, you know, they think it was the olden days. Sure. They were like, you're old, mom. And they'll say, mom, you don't get it because it wasn't like that for you. And so I say, all right, owning your space, listening, being

a good friend as well. You know, being, that there are, I mean, my children are very moral, I have to say. One of them is very righteous, and my older one is just a bit more easygoing about things. But they both, they're very much their own people. And I think that I've tried to teach them to be their own person because I was never, I didn't know who my own person was. You belong to the world, Brooke Shields. I did. I did. was yeah i'm and i found you belong to the world brook shields i i did i did but you know also

i'm it's so interesting is when this doc was presented to me my actress ego immediately sort of went to oh everybody's gonna see my work yeah yeah you know and then i had to sort of step back from that and and really realize that this was a bigger it was a bigger story and i wanted my girls to see how to survive and keep going through through life yeah and and don't let yourself be be beaten you're gonna be hurt you'll be scared but surround yourself with good people yeah get a laura linney yeah yeah and. Yep. And pick your friends. And find something that makes you happy. Oh, there you go.

And really do it. I mean, really find the joy in it because it's going to be hard. You're going to be rejected no matter what you choose. But the joy that I get from being who I am as an actress is, is worth all of it to me. Well, that's good. And did they hear all that? Do they take it? They hear it, they take it. Um, and they're, they're, you know, they, they're, they fight me on certain things, but when I start talking to them about this stuff, they see the experience and they, my older daughter said, you're the strongest person I've

ever known, mom. And, and she said, you know, I watched the documentary, she watched it by herself and she said, I can't believe there's so much I didn't know, but you're really cooler than I thought. There you go. Got a few points. Yeah. I'll take it. Good talking to you. There you go. There it is. Got a few points. Yeah, I'll take it. Good talking to you. Thank you.

How can you not love Brooke Shields? Huh? Pretty baby, Brooke Shields is now streaming on Hulu. That was fun. Hang out for a second, people. Shields is now streaming on Hulu.

That was fun. Hang out for a second, people. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea and ice cream? Yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats.

Get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. bonus podcast episode where I talked to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly.

This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Okay, I've been talking for a couple months now about the movies of Kelly Reichardt, and I finally got to talk to her after seeing her newest film, Showing Up. Here's what happened. So I see a coming attraction for the new one, for a trailer for Showing Up. And there was a moment in it that I thought was so acute and perceptive that I had to watch every one of your movies

because of one moment in the trailer. Now, I had seen, you know, Wendy and Lucy when it came out, I think,

and I had seen First Cow, but I never put them together as, you know, I never connected the tissue of you and your work. So that one moment

where that guy's digging that hole and showing up and he says, what is it? It's a big work, an important work. What does he say? He says, it's a piece, a very important piece. That was it.

Yeah. A very important piece. And then once I realized it was about artists and I dated a painter for years and there was something about that moment that sort of revealed the kind of delusion that an artist has to have in order to believe that their work is relevant. Right. All of us. That's right. Yeah.

But I thought it was so hilarious in that moment without any context. Right? Right, right. So then I'm like, oh my God, who is this person who made this movie? You'll hear that full conversation on Thursday. And a reminder, if you want access to every episode of WTF ad-free and get weekly bonus content, sign up for WTF Plus. There's a link in the episode description or go to WTFpod.com and click on WTF Plus. Here we go.

Simple power cords. Here we go. Simple power cords. Here we go. Dirty. Thank you. Thank you. Boomer lives. boomer lives monkey lafonda cat angels everywhere © BF-WATCH TV 2021