Brooke Shields has revealed she was raped as a young Hollywood actress in the new documentary “Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields,” which premiered on Friday the second day of the Sundance film festival.
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The former supermodel did not reveal the identity of her attacker, but said she met the man, someone she already knew, shortly after graduating from college, thinking it was a work meeting to discuss her involvement in a new movie.
He took her back to his hotel, claiming that he would call her a taxi from her room. Instead, he disappeared into the bathroom before returning naked and assaulting her, he said.
“I didn’t fight much…I was absolutely frozen,” Shields recalled in the documentary.
“I thought my one ‘no’ should have been enough. And I just thought ‘stay alive and get out.'”
After the incident, Shields recalled calling his friend and head of security Gavin de Becker, who told him: “That’s rape.”
She responded, “I’m not willing to believe that,” and has not spoken publicly about the incident until now.
The revelation, which echoes the #MeToo revelations of both prominent and lesser-known Hollywood actresses in recent years, is one of several shocking moments in the film, which will premiere on streaming platform Hulu in two parts.
The first part examines the intense sexualization Shields experienced as a child, including a provocative nude photo shoot at age 10, and her appearance as a child prostitute in the film “Pretty Baby” at age 11.
The documentary shows a young Shields being asked lewd questions by much older male chat show hosts about her roles in movies like “The Blue Lagoon” and “Endless Love,” and Calvin Klein’s series of controversial jeans commercials. which starred
After experiencing worldwide fame as a teenager, Shields attended college at Princeton and initially struggled to find acting roles again after graduation, leading to meeting her alleged rapist.
‘Perseverance’
“My personal message is to persevere and not allow yourself to become a victim of a society or an industry,” he told AFP ahead of the film’s premiere at the Utah festival.
“I’m proud of how I kept learning, kept growing, kept pushing myself and kept loving what I do,” Shields said.
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The film, which earned Shields a standing ovation at Sundance, also chronicles the media’s subsequent obsession with her virginity, her mother’s alcoholism, and her first marriage to tennis star Andre Agassi.
It features several of Shields’ famous friends, including Lionel Richie, Laura Linney, and Drew Barrymore.
Co-founded by Robert Redford, Sundance is a key launching pad for independent feature films and documentaries.
Thursday also premiered “Justice,” a surprise late addition to the festival’s lineup exploring the sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
The first documentary from “The Bourne Identity” director Doug Liman features testimony from Deborah Ramirez, one of Kavanaugh’s accusers and a former Yale classmate.
It also includes audio from another classmate, who said he saw Kavanaugh expose himself to a different, “extremely drunk” student at another party, but whose account was only reported in the US media months after Kavanaugh’s polarizing confirmation hearing. in the Senate in 2018.
The woman, whose name is not identified, has said she does not remember the incident.
“This was the kind of movie where people are terrified” to talk, Liman said.
Kavanaugh has categorically denied engaging in sexual misconduct.
The 2023 Sundance Film Festival is the first to take place in person in three years, as recent editions have been forced online by Covid. It runs until January 29.
