‘Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old’ Actor Addresses Women Aging: NPR

Actress Brooke Shields’ new memoir, Brooke Shields is not allowed to age, hitting shelves Tuesday, is a reflection on aging and practicality as a woman — especially focused on those, like Shields, who grew up in the public eye.

Shields, 59, started in the entertainment industry as a model when she was just months old. Until she was 11, she was acting in films such as Alice, sweet Alice and, immediately after, Beautiful babyin which she posed naked. She writes in her memoir that valuing herself at 59 is her “most challenging choice.”

In the book — and in an interview with NPR’s Leila Fadel Monday — Shields discusses the importance of self-advocacy for women, especially in medical settings. Reflecting on her own experiences, she also opens up about having labia reduction surgery—and discovering, upon waking, that the male doctor had also performed something called “vaginal rejuvenation surgery” (the medical term for this tightening procedure is colpoplasty) without her consent.

“I was horrified, but I also lost,” Shields writes in the memoir. “I didn’t want to sue this man – or maybe I did want yes, but I didn’t feel I could – because I didn’t particularly want to talk about my lady parts, once again, on the front page of every newspaper.’

On the advice of her gynecologist, Shields had opted to undergo a labiaplasty, a procedure that would reduce the size of her lips, to relieve the discomfort she had experienced since high school.

But when she awoke, Shields writes, she was “given a younger vagina”—something she didn’t want or consent to. She didn’t tell her husband for months, she writes.

“My shock and disappointment was so intense, but it felt so familiar. It just felt like, oh, here we go again… I don’t know why you think it’s going to be any different, Brooke.” Shields told NPR.

In the interview, Shields also shared that to date, she has not sued the doctor or gone after him in any way.

“I think I wasn’t strong enough. I didn’t feel secure enough in my career to be about my anatomy again. … I finally felt like I was past my virginity, you know?” he told NPR. “I think if it had happened in this era, it would have been received a lot better.”

In Shields’ 1985 book, alone, she shared that she was a virgin, which quickly became a matter of public debate.

In 2022 episode of her podcast, now what? With Brooke Shields, she said she regretted sharing her virginity status so publicly. Although Shields said the attention to her virginity led to “creepy” interviews, she also shared that it prepared her for her career as a woman in the media industry.

“Being in the line of fire at such a young age like that has given me a resilience and made me ready for anything in this industry, which can be difficult,” she said on the podcast.