On the Shelf
‘Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Previous’
By Brooke ShieldsFlatiron Books: 256 pages, $30If you purchase books linked on our website, The Instances might earn a fee from Bookshop.org, whose charges help impartial bookstores.
“I was doing an Instagram Live and people were saying, ‘I really wish you looked like you used to,’” Brooke Shields tells The Instances from her resort room in Los Angeles.
If Shields is getting criticized about her seems, what hope is there for the remainder of us? That’s one of many quandaries on the middle of Shields’ newest memoir about getting old, “Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old.”
“The past books that I’ve written, except for the children’s books, have all been based on one event that was truly traumatic for me, so that was the impetus,” says Shields, who beforehand wrote books about her postpartum despair and complex relationship along with her supervisor mom. “This one didn’t have that, so it was a little unnerving for me in the beginning.” However that “made it even more exciting to write — and much more enjoyable to read the audio book.”
Shields wasn’t even positive she needed to write down this e-book, initially recommended to her by her agent as a continuation of the dialog she began along with her podcast, “Now What? With Brooke Shields,” and in step with her hair care line, Start, designed for mature tresses.
The previous baby star had just lately revisited her previous within the Emmy-nominated documentary “Pretty Baby,” named for the controversial 1978 film wherein Shields performed a younger intercourse employee, and headlined a song-filled, one-woman present titled “Previously Owned by Brooke Shields.”
“Did we really need more of me out there? The documentary was a lot. ‘Do you really need it, Brooke?’ I always get really cringey about that stuff,” she says, channeling her inner debate about embarking on the challenge.
“But as I was thinking about it, it’s indicative of age to feel this desire and need to look at where I am in my life and look back differently, but don’t stay looking back,” she provides, deciding whether or not she may “make it funny, irreverent, silly but truthful and have it be positive for women, instead of what we’re taught to fear about age, supported or negated by stats and studies, then that to me would be an interesting read.”
As with Shields’ aforementioned different current tasks, she was primed to contemplate what this second in her life meant within the wider context of societal willingness to speak about menopause.
“Not only is this happening to me, but it’s happening to other women,” she factors out.
Shields is prepared to poke enjoyable at herself — and he or she doesn’t take herself too significantly, as previous comedian turns in reveals comparable to “Suddenly Susan” and “Friends” attest. Folks deal with the previous Calvin Klein mannequin by title on the road, however that very same title will also be a rallying cry for her when her confidence has been shaken.
“You’re FBS: F—ing Brooke Shields,” her buddies will bolster her at such moments.
There’s a very entertaining anecdote within the e-book about her daughter borrowing her designer garments. Shields felt they need to be saved for a special day, to which her daughter replies with the above line — minus the expletive.
Shields as soon as would have objected to such discuss her movie star or magnificence. “I used to go, ‘Oh, God. Stop.’ Because to me it felt like arrogance,” she says, noting that her outsize fame meant she was maybe ignored for extra critical roles or that folks she needed to work with had preconceived notions of what she was capable of do.
However now she leans into the popularity: It’s allowed her to make a dwelling and gotten her to some extent in her profession the place she’s now the topic of retrospectives and reconsideration — whether or not by “Pretty Baby” director Lana Wilson or by turning the mirror again on herself.
“I’m not comparing myself to Marilyn Monroe but — and I say it in the book — when someone in the public eye dies at their most youthful and famous, they become immortalized at that age,” she observes. “When you don’t do that,” folks might be dissatisfied. “I can’t be this idol anymore because I don’t look like I did in ‘Blue Lagoon’ anymore, or whatever.”
Although there’s far more in “Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old,” an apt takeaway is “WWFBSD — What Would F—ing Brooke Shields Do?”
