“Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields” premiered this Friday at the Sundance Film Festival in the United States.
In Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields a documentary premiered on Friday at the Sundance Film Festival in the United States, American actress Brooke Shields reveals that she was raped at the start of her Hollywood career.
The former supermodel has kept the identity of her attacker a secret, but said she tracked down the man – whom she knew – shortly after graduating from college, believing he had acted of a work meeting to discuss its participation in a casting for a new film.
The man took her back to her hotel, saying he wanted to call a taxi for her from her room. He instead went to the bathroom before emerging naked and raping her, she said.
“It was like a fight… I was afraid of getting suffocated or something like that”, testifies the actress in the documentary.
“I didn’t struggle much. I didn’t. I was just completely petrified. I thought my ‘no’ should have been enough. And I was just like, ‘stay alive and go’.”
intense sexualization
After the assault, Brooke Shields recalls phoning a friend who worked in security, Gavin de Becker, who told her, “It’s rape,” to which she replied, “I’m not ready. to believe it”.
Until now, the actress had never spoken publicly about her attack. This revelation, which echoes the #MeToo wave, is one of many poignant moments in the film, which will be released on the Hulu streaming platform in two parts.
The first part is devoted to the intense sexualization that Brooke Shields was subjected to at a very young age, notably during a naked photo shoot at the age of 10, as well as after her appearance at 11 in the film. Pretty Baby in which she played a child prostitute.
The documentary shows a young Brooke Shields facing lustful questions from much older men on talk shows about her roles in movies like The blue lagoon Where An endless loveand the controversial series of Calvin Klein commercials in which she appeared.
standing ovation
After experiencing world stardom as a teenager, the young woman went to Princeton University. After graduating, she initially struggled to find roles again – leading to the grim encounter with her rapist.
“My personal message is perseverance, and not allowing yourself to become a victim in the eyes of any society or industry,” she told AFP ahead of the film’s premiere at the festival. organized until January 29 in Utah (western United States) – for the first time face-to-face in three years, because of the Covid-19.
“I’m proud of how I’ve continued to learn, grow, work and love what I do,” she added.
The documentary, which earned Brooke Shields a standing ovation at Sundance, also chronicles the media’s obsession with her virginity, her mother’s alcoholism and her first marriage to tennis star Andre Agassi. Several of his famous friends are interviewed there, including Lionel Richie, Laura Linney and Drew Barrymore.
The actress, who is now 57, said it was “the right time in (her) life” to appear in a documentary.
