Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields | Trailer, Revelations

Brooke Shields Opens Up About Trauma From Being Sexualized as a Child in "Pretty Baby" Trailer

March 21, 2023 by Njera Perkins First Published: January 24, 2023

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"Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields" | Part One Revelations

Brooke didn't realize she was being sexualized as a child. During the early years of Brooke's career, her mother, Teri, faced harsh backlash for "exploiting the sexuality of a child," though the momager said she didn't think that's what she was doing to her daughter at the time — and apparently, neither did Brooke. "I didn't feel uncomfortable, nor did I feel embarrassed," she says of her younger days. "As a model, your job is just to be dressed and put out there, so I didn't have that awareness of my budding puberty. Because I was years away from any of that."
No one advised Brooke about her "Pretty Baby" kissing scene with Keith Carradine. When it came to her acting performance in "Pretty Baby," Brooke says that "no one helped me." "I was there to say these lines [and] to do it without any education about how to do it," she adds, per director Louis Malle's direction for the film. For her first kiss scene — which was also her first kiss in real life — Brooke reveals she would scrunch her face up every time Carradine leaned in, which also upset Malle. She says that Carradine told her that their kiss "doesn't count" as he saw it as a moment just for the movie.
Brooke's mother "didn't even bat an eye" at her provocative commercial work and onscreen roles. Despite what critics were saying about Teri signing Brooke up for sexualized projects like "Pretty Baby," the actor says her mother was more concerned about her having less tutor time because of long days filming on sets vs. the overly-sexual roles she played at a young age. "She was always there controlling everything behind the scenes, but she didn't hover, she didn't always go on the set with me," Brooke shares. "My mom was happy with that because she [was like,] 'I could go to the bar and drink.'"
Brooke felt most safe, emotionally, when she was on a movie set. As her mother's alcoholism worsened, Brooke says she saw movie sets as a safe haven. "I craved the routine of a job because there were other people around, I could lose myself in it, and I only had to be responsible for myself," she explains.
Brooke was "hurt more by the breach of trust and friendship" with photographer Garry Gross than the nature of the nude photos he took of her when she was 10 years old. In 1985, Brooke, with her mother's permission, posed nude in a bathtub for a photo shoot with Gross. Her mother then sued the photographer six years later when he tried to use them commercially against their wishes, though he ultimately won the case in 1983 — a Court of Appeals ruled that Brooke could not break a contract her mother signed in 1975 granting Gross permission to use the photos, per The New York Times. In regards to the public controversy and court case, Brooke says she was hurt more by how the men associated with it treated her. "It was as low rent, low class, there was zero integrity in it, and to me, that was so angering and hurtful," she notes.
Brooke disassociated while filming her intimate scenes in "Endless Love." While filming the 1981 romantic drama — which follows the passionate love affair of two teenagers — with costar Martin Hewitt, Brooke reveals that she didn't trust director Franco Zeffirelli to "create a safe environment" for her, recalling how he'd twist her toe in pain so her face could illustrate "ecstasy" during love scenes because the then 15-year-old was sexually inexperienced. Brooke goes on to recount how she'd disassociate during filming because she didn't want to appear "stupid" or "untalented." "I was really shut down after that," she says. "I thought of myself as just the sort of workhorse. They paid me, I did the thing, they sold it, everybody's happy. It's transactional."

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Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields | Trailer, Revelations

Brooke Shields Opens Up About Trauma From Being Sexualized as a Child in "Pretty Baby" Trailer

"Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields" | Part One Revelations

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