Brooke Shields revealed on The Drew Barrymore Show on Tuesday that her mother never dated anyone because she was “in love with her.”
Brooke Shields and Drew Barrymore discuss their mothers’ obsession with them
The Blue Lagoon star, 57, opened up about her relationship with her alcoholic late mother Teri Shields, who died in 2012, just days after slamming Teri for allowing her to pose naked for a Playboy magazine when she was 10 years old.
Barrymore, 48, revealed she could relate by sharing stories about her famously dysfunctional relationship with her mother, Jaid Barrymore.
Shields was asked if her mother Teri had dated any of her partners, as Barrymore’s own mother had.
‘No, because she was in love with me,’ Shields claimed – while adding that her mother had no interest in men while she was managing her daughter’s career.
She added: ‘I was her main focus. Both of us were cut off from our sexuality.
Barrymore then shared her own experiences with her mother Jaid dating her boyfriend.
She said: ‘My mom was so enamored with me that she wanted to be with the people I was with’ with Shields responding: ‘I get it. It’s so needy and weird,’ adding that her mother accompanied her to every single interview she had when she was younger.
Shields said: ‘No one’s going to get you. I’m going to be there. I’m there first. You’re mine. I’m not going to give you to somebody.
‘Under the guise of protection, but it was more ownership and fear.’
Shields didn’t mind her mother’s behavior at the time because she associated her work with being able to buy’stuff’ for her mother.
‘I did a movie and we got a car. All I knew was keep my mother alive, keep dancing and get stuff,’ she recalled.
‘But to emerge from it not angry or jaded … it’s something in your character. It’s in my character,’ the mom of daughters Rowan and Grier said.
Shields received a phone call from Blue Lagoon director Randal Kleiser following the release of the documentary.
She said: ‘I saw his name on my phone, and I was like, “oh, what do I do?” And I let it go to voicemail because I was like, “I want to see what the tone is.’
‘He wants to chat. I don’t know about what, I don’t feel like bringing any of it back up again.
Shields added she felt as if she was functionally exploited during her early years as a performer.
She said: ‘It was about, you know, these males needing me to be in a certain category to serve their story and it never was about me, it was never protective of me.’
‘It was fun and loving at times, but…I was just there. I was a pawn, I was a piece, I was a commodity,’ she said.
Shields previously stated that she would never have allowed her children to participate in the ‘pornography’ she was exposed to as a child star by her mother.
When she was 11, she was forced to kiss Keith Carradine, then 27, in the 1978 film Pretty Baby, in which she played a prostitute.
Shields said she couldn’t understand why her mother, Teri Shields, didn’t intervene when her own daughters refused to watch it.
Rowan says in a clip from the upcoming documentary Pretty Baby: ‘It’s child pornography! Would you have let us [do that] at the age of 11?’
Miss Shields responds, ‘No,’ overcome with emotion. She told The Sunday Times Magazine about the conversation: ‘That was hard for me, to not justify my mom to them, but when they asked, I thought, ”Oh God, I have to admit this.” But I don’t know why she thought it was all right.’
Shields stated that she couldn’t be angry with her because her mother was so insecure.
The actress has long deflected blame to her mother, who allowed Shields to pose naked for a Playboy publication when she was 10 years old, but Shields has now admitted: ‘I don’t know why she thought it was all right. I don’t know.’
The actress is seen sobbing as she reflects on her childhood in the spotlight, dealing with issues ranging from being sexualized as a pre-pubescent girl to the public humiliation she felt after losing her virginity as a young adult.
Shields told her two daughters that she would never allow them to watch the film in which she kissed a 27-year-old Carradine while also appearing naked.
Shields’ mother is said to have stood by and watched as it happened, while her co-star Carradine reassured her that it was all a dream.
The documentary, directed by Lana Wilson, takes its title from Louis Malle’s 1978 film ‘Pretty Baby,’ a drama about a young sex worker, played by Shields, in New Orleans in 1917.
In Polly Platt’s film, she kisses Carradine while also appearing naked.
Shields reportedly made a repulsed face and was yelled at by the director at one point. Nonetheless, her mother never intervened.
‘That was … that was hard for me, to not justify my mom to them, but when they asked me, I thought, ‘Oh God, I have to admit this,’ ‘ Shields told the Times when speaking about the documentary.
‘I mean, I could say, ‘Oh, it was the time back then,’ or ‘Oh, it was art.’ But I don’t know why she thought it was all right. I don’t know.’
It wasn’t the first time she’d been sexualized by the media, nor would it be the last. At the age of 15, she starred in ‘Blue Lagoon,’ followed by ‘Endless Love.’ Both had sex and nudity. Then there were the Calvin Klein denim commercials.
A family friend and photographer tried to sell nude photos he took of her when she was only 10 years old when she was 16 and a global star. Her mother filed a lawsuit, and the family went to court, but the photographer prevailed.
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