Brooke Shields has revealed she was raped when she was in her early 20s, but was ashamed to tell anyone at the time.
The 57-year-old actress told the dark story in her new documentary Pretty Baby, which explores the abuse of young, vulnerable people in Hollywood.
A child star, Shields appeared in the film Pretty Baby at age 11 and appeared nude with 29-year-old Keith Carradine.
At 15, she appeared in two more films, Blue Lagoon and Endless Love, which involved sex and nudity.
In the documentary, which premiered Friday at the Sundance Film Festival, Shields recounted an attack shortly after he graduated from Princeton in 1987.
Brooke Shields has revealed she was raped in 1987 (left) at the age of 22. She can be seen at the premiere of her documentary on Friday, in which she talks about the attack
Pretty Baby, due for Hulu later this year, explores how Shields was sexualized early in her career as a child growing up in the fashion world and in Hollywood
She said she was keen to return to acting at age 22 and had dinner with a man she knew to discuss potential projects.
Shields describes the rape for the first time and says in the documentary that after her visit to Princeton she tried to return to Hollywood and had dinner with a man she knew to talk about possible projects, according to Entertainment Weekly .
The man then invited her to come back to his hotel and call a taxi.
“I’ll go up to the hotel room and he’ll go away for a while,” she said.
She said there were binoculars in the room and she picked them up to watch some volleyball players out the window.
He then returned to the room naked and attacked her.
Shields, 57, attends the premiere of her new documentary Pretty Baby at the Sundance Film Festival on Friday
“I put the binoculars down and he’s right on top of me. Just like wrestling,” she said, explaining that she didn’t fight out of fear.
“I was afraid I would be suffocated or something.
“So I didn’t fight that much. Not me. I just froze.
“I thought a ‘no’ should have been enough and I just thought ‘live and get out,’ and I just ruled it out.
“God knows I knew how to detach myself from my body. I had practiced that.”
She said she left the hotel after the attack, got into a taxi and “cried all the way to my girlfriend’s apartment”.
She said it took years to come to terms with what had happened.
“He said to me, ‘I can trust you and I can’t trust people.’ It’s so cliche, it’s practically pathetic,” she said.
“I kind of believed I was sending out a message, and so the message was received.
“I drank wine at dinner. I went into the room. I was just so trusting.”
She said she wrote to her attacker years later, but he never replied.
Shields, mother of two, is pictured at a gala in New York City on January 8
She didn’t name him.
“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 have prepared for or not,'” she said .
“I wanted to erase the whole thing from my mind and body and just stay on the path I was on.
“The system had never come to my rescue. So I just had to get stronger on my own.’
The two-part documentary is directed by Lana Wilson, best known for directing Taylor Swift’s 2020 Netflix documentary Miss Americana.
The revealing film will also reportedly look back at Brooke’s first marriage to tennis star Andre Agassi, her turbulent relationship with her alcoholic mother Teri, and her own struggles with motherhood.
It will be available on Hulu later this year.