Actress and model Brooke Shields has opened up about the moment Tom Cruise put an end to their feud.
“It wasn’t the world’s best apology, but it’s what he was capable of, and I accepted it,” Shields wrote in her new book, “Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old: Thoughts on Aging as a Woman.” That’s according to excerpts of the book published by Page Six.
Shields wrote that the controversy made a difference because speaking out in defense of herself focused “discussions on the reality and prevalence of postpartum depression.”
According to Page Six, Cruise caused controversy on the “Today Show” in 2005 when he labeled Shields “irresponsible” for taking medications to help with postpartum depression. Cruise said that taking medications “didn’t cure anything,” according to Page Six.
Brooke Shields Says She Decided to Stick Up for Herself Because of ‘Self-Confidence’
HallmarkBrooke Shields in Hallmark’s 2016 “Flower Shop Mysteries: Snipped in the Bud”In the book, Shields recalled that she was “sticking up for” herself after Cruise’s comments. “Had Tom taken a public swing at me before I became a mother, I probably would have stayed quiet. I would have ignored his ridiculous rant,” she wrote in the book, according to Page Six.
Shields described how she might have held back. “I might have been content to sit back while this very famous man hijacked my experience to advance his own” agenda, she writes in the book.
Instead, she decided to speak out because she was “emboldened by self-confidence,” she wrote, according to Page Six.
“A decade earlier — I might have even regretted sharing my story or felt insecure that maybe my career was stalling while a powerful male movie star was singling me out, sure that I’d never stand a chance in that fight,” she wrote.
The Book Also Describes How Brooke Shields Believes Aging Has ‘Brought Freedom’ for Her
GettyBrooke Shields attends the 2023 Sundance Film Festival’s “Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields” premiereThe book’s Amazon caption says, “Brooke Shields has spent a lifetime in the public eye. Growing up as a child actor and model, her every feature was scrutinized, her every decision judged. Today Brooke faces a different kind of scrutiny: that of being a ‘woman of a certain age.'”
“And yet, for Brooke, the passage of time has brought freedom. At fifty-nine, she feels more comfortable in her skin, more empowered and confident than she did decades ago in those famous Calvin Kleins,” the caption reads.
“Now, in Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old, she’s changing the narrative about women and aging.”
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