Brooke Shields: 'It's a miracle I survived'

In an upcoming documentary, Brooke Shields (57) talks about, among other things, that she was a victim of sexual violence as a young woman and how she was sexualized early on.

Brooke Shields: 'It's a miracle I survived'

In an upcoming documentary, Brooke Shields (57) talks about, among other things, that she was a victim of sexual violence as a young woman and how she was sexualized early on. "No one will believe me," she thought at the time. "People didn't believe those stories back then. I thought I'd never work again," the US magazine "People" quoted the actress as saying.

In the documentary, Shields speaks openly about the incident, which is said to have happened more than 30 years ago. Shortly after graduating from Princeton, she met a Hollywood executive for dinner - hoping for a role. The unnamed man invited her to his hotel room to call a taxi. There Shields was then attacked. She "didn't fight" and was frozen, she says in the documentary. She had previously been sexualized as a girl in films such as Pretty Baby (1978) and The Blue Lagoon (1980).

"It's a miracle that I survived," the actress told the magazine in retrospect. "It took me a long time to process it," she says of the attack she experienced in her 20s. "I'm angrier today than I could have been then. If you're scared, you have a right to be."

She had to process what she had experienced in her own way and on her own terms. Today she shares her story "hoping to help people not feel alone". An important part, she says, "is that everyone is processing their own trauma and their own experiences in different time frames," Shields says. She felt like now was the right time to talk about her experiences.

Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and will be available on US streaming service Hulu from April 3. It is currently unclear whether and when the documentary will also be shown in Germany.

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