In Pretty Baby: Brooke ShieldsIn a documentary that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in the United States, American actress Brooke Shields reveals that she was raped early in her Hollywood career.
The former supermodel has kept the identity of her attacker a secret but said she tracked down the man – who she knew – just after graduating college because she believed he was at a business meeting to confirm his participation in a rental for a new one to discuss the movie.
The man took her back to her hotel and claimed to call a taxi for her from her room. He instead went to the bathroom before emerging naked and raped her, she said.
“It was like a struggle… I was scared I was going to choke or something,” the actress testifies to the documentary.
“I didn’t fight a lot. I didn’t do it. I was just totally petrified. I thought my ‘no’ should have been enough. And I just thought, ‘live and go’.”
Brooke Shields recalls after the attack she called a friend who worked in security, Gavin de Becker, who told her, “It’s rape,” to which she replied, “I’m not ready to believe it.”
The actress has never spoken publicly about her attack before.
This revelation, commemorating the #MeToo wave, is one of many poignant moments in the film, which will be released in two parts on the Hulu streaming platform.
The first part is dedicated to the intense sexualization Brooke Shields faced at a very young age, particularly during a nude photo shoot at age 10 and after her appearance at age 11 in the film Pretty Baby, in which she played a child prostitute.
The 57-year-old actress said it was “the right time in (her) life” to star in a documentary.