On Tuesday’s episode of “The Drew Barrymore Show,” Brooke Shields and Drew Barrymore had a deeply vulnerable and important conversation about both of their experiences of being sexualized as young girls in the entertainment industry. Additionally, neither woman felt like she knew her place during the #MeToo movement because of it.
Shields appeared on her good friend’s show to promote her two-part documentary titled “Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields,” which delves into what it was like being sexualized as a young girl in Hollywood and having a deeply toxic relationship with her manager mother, Teri Shields. Barrymore has also been open about how her own complicated relationship with her mother and manager, Jade, has impacted her life.
In a clip from the show that very quickly went viral, Barrymore asked Shields how she felt when the #MeToo movement garnered more attention in 2017.
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“I didn’t feel like I had a dog in that race. I didn’t feel like I could speak to it, because I experienced things that were so inappropriate at such a young age,” Barrymore said. “We were children. How did that movement affect you? Did you feel like you could speak to it?”
Shields agreed, saying she didn’t feel like she could “speak to the movement” because she didn’t realize where she fell on the spectrum of sexualization, harassment, and even abuse—adding that for a long time, she didn’t have the tools to interpret everything she lived through.
In 1979, Shields was cast to play a child prostitute at just 12 years old in the movie “Pretty Baby.” At just 14, she starred in “Blue Lagoon,” another film where she was also sexualized by spending the movie topless with just her hair covering her chest.
While all of that is certainly disturbing enough, to get a clear idea of exactly how grown men in Hollywood—and around the world—were talking about Brooke Shields as a child, here’s an excerpt from a real magazine profile of her when she was an actual child. The journalist—a man—describes her as a “perfect nymphette,” her eyes as “sinfully blue,” and that she’s “a sultry mix of all-American virgin and whore.”
She was 12 years old.
“I was made to feel culpable, but at the same time you victim-shame yourself. We were so young and it was so ‘appropriate,’” Shields tells Barrymore. “I couldn’t feel sorry. I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know.”
Once she realized that her early career experiences were more than just problematic, it was difficult and overwhelming to process everything she’d been through—something she and Barrymore have in common.
“I felt like I couldn’t speak to the movement, and I was so happy that it was happening, but I felt like I experienced too many things that were so gray and so awkward and I didn’t know were wrong at the time,” Barrymore said.
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Many people on Twitter called attention to the interview with the two women, noting Barrymore’s brilliant interview style in particular.
I am beyond happy they discussed the self-blaming that happens esp when youre young. It took me a long time and the help of others to even realize it was sexual abuse and that i could put it into those terms. https://t.co/aMsnrFYlkV
— Sarah
(@ScaredBisexual) April 12, 2023
Becoming mothers to daughters (both women each have two) helped them understand and process how deeply wrong it was for them to have experienced sexualization at such a young age.
The two agreed that looking back, they understood how serious and traumatic the experiences they went through were, especially as the two are both mothers with daughters.
You can watch Shields’ documentary, “Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields,” on Hulu.