This article contains mentions of rape and sexual assault.
Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields leads us through the life of the popular actress and model, touching on issues like the controversial movies and ad campaigns she participated in as a child, but by far the most shocking reveal in the Hulu documentary is that of Shields’ rape by an unnamed Hollywood mogul.
The documentary, which premiered in January at Sundance, marks the first time Shields has ever spoken about the occurrence. She had just graduated from Princeton, which essentially paused her career for the better part of four years. Like the fast-paced and ruthless industry it is, Hollywood had moved on and the Blue Lagoon actress couldn’t find any worthwhile work. She was approached by a big producer who showed interest in her for a new role, something that hadn’t happened in a while. The two arranged a dinner which Shields thought was a work meeting, but there was little talk about the movie.
“I had met this person before. He was always nice to me. But then, the person’s behavior was changing. There was no talk about the movie. No talk about a part in the movie. No talk about anything. And I was like, ‘I don’t think that was it. I don’t understand.’ And so I said, ‘Oh I have to get a cab.'”
The man proposed Shields get a cab from his hotel instead. Once up in his room, he disappeared, leaving the 22-year-old actress wondering what to do. She picked up some binoculars she found and observed volleyball players from the window, when she heard him come back out, she turned around, still holding the binoculars to find him naked in front of her.
“It was a – this, like, wrestle. I was wrestling. You know, I didn’t want to. I was afraid I’d get choked out or something, or, like – I didn’t know. I played the scene out in my head, you know – the run away, and the pull back, and the beat the shit out of. And I was just like, ‘Oh! No. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.'”
After that, Shields froze. “I just thought, ‘Stay alive, and get out.'” She describes shutting out and disassociating, a practice she had mastered over the years during uncomfortable situations on movie sets. After it ended, the man opened the door, said “See you around,” and that was it. Shields got on the elevator, called a cab, and rushed to her friend’s house in tears.
She then told her security expert, Gavin De Becker, who told her “That’s rape,” something Shields refused to believe. In the documentary, in conversation with a fellow actress and friend Alexandra Wentworth years later, the actress confesses that what she felt the most ashamed about now, was that, at the time, the situation made her feel “cool.” She elaborates, saying that she felt like the event was the validation she had sought for so long within the more serious and artistic acting world, based on the typical predatory line delivered to her by her attacker – “I can trust you, and I can’t trust people.”
When Shields eventually came to peace with the fact she wasn’t to blame, she wrote a letter to the man where she confronted him. “How dare you? I’m better than that, I’m better than you are, actually,” she wrote. It was ignored, so she worked hard to erase the whole thing from her mind and body. “The system had never once come to help me. So I just had to get stronger on my own,” Shields concluded.
Was Harvey Weinstein the Hollywood producer Brooke Shields talks about in Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields?
Brooke Shields never names the aggressor who sexually assaulted her when she was 22, but everything she describes will undoubtedly bring to mind the most infamous serial rapist in Hollywood. Harvey Weinstein, the monster who assaulted over 80 women, would almost always bring them up to his hotel room and show up naked, much like Shields recounts.
Louisette Geiss said she met Weinstein in his office, adjacent to his hotel room. “After about 30 minutes, he asked to excuse himself and go to the bathroom. He returned in nothing but a robe with the front open and he was buck naked,” she said. When she tried to leave, he grabbed her and pleaded with her to stay and watch him please himself. Zoë Brock paints almost the exact same picture. The producer invited her and a number of other people to his hotel room during the Cannes Film Festival. When she was left alone with him, “[Weinstein] left the room, but not for long. He re-emerged naked a couple of minutes later and asked if I would give him a massage.” Dozens of accusations against Weinstein follow variations of this pattern.
In 1987, when Shields was attacked, Weinstein was already a prolific film producer, especially within the independent and arthouse scene. Since the actress describes the opportunity supposedly presented to her at the time as the chance to finally be respected in her field, it would make sense for the producer to be involved in highbrow projects. Weinstein would also target young women who were either starting out or looking to re-establish their careers, much like Shields, and leverage his pull within the film world against them. If they sought justice, he would threaten to bulldoze their careers.
Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison in New York in 2020 and 16 in Los Angeles in 2022 for charges of rape and sexual misconduct, among others.
Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields is available to stream on Hulu. Check out We Got This Covered’s review of the documentary.
If you know someone suffering from sexual violence, contact RAINN or the National Sexual Abuse Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.