Brooke Shields: Finding My Power and Strength

Transcript

00:00This week I chose to put Brooke Shields on the cover of Us Weekly.

00:03To be honest, I couldn't think of a reason why not to put this American icon on the cover of

00:07our magazine. She's an accomplished actress, model and entrepreneur who has been at the

00:11forefront of the zeitgeist for nearly half a century. So there is so much to learn from

00:16her extraordinary life. She's always been transparent, but as Brooke approaches her

00:2060th birthday, she's become even more confident and empowered to say exactly what she thinks.

00:26And she's done just that in her new book, Brooke Shields is Not Allowed to Get Old,

00:30Thoughts on Aging as a Woman. I found the story she told very compelling and unique,

00:35but the feeling of self-assurance and knowledge that she now has is something we will aspire to

00:41as we get older. So I wanted us as readers to hear more. Brooke has spent a lot of her life

00:46being a people pleaser, answering awkward sexual questions from journalists, being a

00:51dutiful daughter to her mother and manager, Terry, and letting the world into all aspects

00:56of her life, even smiling for paparazzi when she went to college. She's had hit after hit on

01:01television, but as she's got older, she says she started to feel invisible and that her external

01:06perceptions didn't seem to match up with her internal sense of self and that the entertainment

01:10industry wasn't as enthusiastic towards her as they were when she was younger. This is something

01:15so many of us can relate to when we age. She says, I'm expected to be invisible, to make no

01:20demand or to fade away so that I can be frozen in time as a specific version of Brooke Shields.

01:26In the book and in our interview, she brings menopause out of the shadows and

01:30openly talks about the experience of aging and the moment when she and her daughters,

01:34Rowan, who's now 21, and Greer, who's now 18, were walking down the street and she realised

01:40people were no longer looking at her, but at her daughters. She talks about this being an

01:44incredibly complex thing for someone to navigate. Being proud that her daughters are beautiful,

01:50not being jealous, but after the fact that she's been valued for her looks and fame for so long,

01:55it's a process to reframe your identity and not being recognised. She talks about how she's learned

02:01to use this invisibility to her advantage by letting people underestimate her and then capitalising on

02:07that. One distressing theme in Shields' life has been the repeated failure of medical professionals

02:13to be, well, professional. In that way, she is like all women who are, according to multiple studies,

02:19not listened to, gaslit and given poorer care than men. She details going for labia reduction

02:26surgery and while in hospital, the surgeons gave her unwanted, unneeded vagina rejuvenation,

02:32which left her dumbfounded. And she said, it felt like such an invasion, such a bizarre-like

02:39rape of some kind. Sharing this story helps others to empower themselves to speak up.

02:43Shields ultimately decided not to sue because she'd already spent so much time with her body

02:48as a headline, but is now speaking up to raise awareness around the issue of the medical

02:53profession not listening to women. To read more on this story, go to usmagazine.com

02:58or pick up our latest issue.