Brooke Shields reveals she was raped in her 20s

Written by on January 22, 2023

Brooke Shields revealed in her new documentary, “Pretty Baby,” she was sexually assaulted shortly after graduating from college in 1987.

Detailing the rape for the first time, Shields says in the doc that she was trying to get back into Hollywood after attending Princeton and had dinner with a man she knew to talk about potential projects, according to Entertainment Weekly.

The unidentified man then allegedly convinced her to come back to his hotel and he would call her a cab home.

“I go up to the hotel room, and he disappears for a while,” she said, noting that he had a pair of binoculars she picked up and was watching volleyball players out the window when he returned to the room naked.

“I put the binoculars down and he’s right on me. Just like, was wrestling,” she said, explaining that she didn’t fight out of fear. “I was afraid I’d get choked out or something.”

Brooke Shields on the red carpet at Sundance Film Festival 2023.
The model said the assault occurred soon after she graduated college in 1987.
Getty Images

The “Blue Lagoon” actress continued, “So, I didn’t fight that much. I didn’t. I just absolutely froze. I thought one ‘No’ should’ve been enough, and I just thought, ‘Stay alive and get out,’ and I just shut it out.

“God knows I knew how to be disassociated from my body. I’d practiced that.”

Brooke Shields circa 1985
A man she knew convinced her to come back to his hotel after a professional dinner to talk about her career.
Getty Images

When it was over, Shields, 57, said she went down the elevator, got a cab and “cried all the way to my friend’s apartment.”

Shields, who admittedly didn’t process that she was raped for a long time, said she blamed herself for the assault.

“He said to me, ‘I can trust you and I can’t trust people.’ It’s so cliché, it’s practically pathetic,” she said. “I believed somehow I put out a message and that was how the message was received. I drank wine at dinner. I went up to the room. I just was so trusting.”

Brooke Shields on a red carpet in a pink dress.
The “Blue Lagoon” actress said she “froze” in the moment out of fear and was unable to fight back.
Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

Years later, the “Endless Love” star says she wrote her attacker a letter confronting him about what he’d done, which was ignored.

“I just threw my hands up and said, ‘You know what, I refuse to be a victim because this is something that happens no matter who you are and no matter what you think you’re prepared for or not,’” she said.

Brooke Shields smiling while walking when she was younger.
The “Pretty Baby” star said she struggled to process what happened to her.
Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

“I wanted to erase the whole thing from my mind and body and just keep on the path I was on. The system had never once come to help me. So, I just had to get stronger on my own.”

Shields, who shares two daughters with husband Chris Henchy, has long talked about being sexualized in Hollywood after she appeared nude in the 1978 film “Pretty Baby” — from which the new documentary is named — with 29-year-old Keith Carradine when she was just 11 years old.

Brooke Shields in "Pretty Baby" in 1978.
Shields has previously talked about being sexualized by Hollywood at a young age.
©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection

At 15, after also having racy scenes in “Blue Lagoon” and “Endless Love,” Barbara Walters controversially asked Shields for her measurements in an interview and told her to stand up.

“But I just behaved and just smiled,” Shields told Drew Barrymore in an interview last year, adding that she “felt so taken advantage of in so many ways.”

“Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Friday and will be available on Hulu later this year.

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