Brooke Shields: Actress wants to help victims of sexual violence

Brooke Shields
Actress wants to help victims of sexual violence

Brooke Shields (57) was raped as a young woman. The actress portrays in the new documentary ‘Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields’ According to a report by the US magazine “Entertainment Weekly”how she was attacked then. In an interview, Shields explains that she is now reporting this to help other sufferers.

Shortly after graduating from Princeton, she met an unnamed man from the Hollywood orbit. He told her to come with him to his hotel, where he would call a taxi for her. The man disappeared into the bathroom and when the door opened again he was naked and attacked her.

It was “like wrestling,” Shields said, and she didn’t try to run away, fearing more violence would ensue. She was afraid the attacker would choke her. The actress hardly resisted and was frozen: “I just thought: ‘Stay alive and get out.'”

After the attack, she called a taxi herself and cried the entire way to a friend’s apartment. Even after a call in which her security chief Gavin de Becker said it was a rape, Shields initially refused to believe it.

After years of therapy, Shields hopes to help others

“I didn’t know if or when I would ever bring it up, if ever,” says the now 57-year-old in an interview with the US industry magazine “The Hollywood Reporter”. It took Shields many years of therapy to even talk about it. She and society are now at a point “where we can talk about these things much more openly”.

As a mother of two young daughters, Shields hopes sharing her experience can make a difference. “Because this is something that happens every day and it shouldn’t happen.” She wanted to share the story “with other men and women who may be struggling or trying to survive.” And she hopes it will help others “process whatever they need to process.”

The documentary premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and will be shown on US streaming service Hulu.

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