Brooke Shields addresses aging as a woman in new book

“I was doing an Instagram Live and people were saying, 'I really wish you looked the same as before,'” Brooke Shields tells The Times from her hotel room in Los Angeles.

If Shields is criticized for her appearance, what hope is there for the rest of us? That's one of the dilemmas at the center of Shields' latest memoir about aging, “Brooke Shields Can't Age.”

“All the books I've written in the past, except children's books, were based on an event that was really traumatic for me, so that was the impetus,” says Shields, who previously wrote books about her postpartum depression and her complicated complications. relationship with his manager mother. “This one didn't have that, so I found it a little disconcerting at first.” But that “made writing the audiobook even more exciting and much more enjoyable to read.”

Shields wasn't even sure she wanted to write this book, which her agent originally suggested to her as a continuation of the conversation she started with her podcast, “What Now? With Brooke Shields,” and in line with her hair care line, Commence, designed for mature locks.

The former child star had recently revisited her past in the Emmy-nominated documentary “Pretty Baby,” named for the controversial 1978 film in which Shields played a young sex worker, and headlined a song-filled one-woman show 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 embarrassed about those things,” she says, channeling her internal debate about embarking on the project.

“But as I thought 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 not stay looking back,” he adds, deciding whether he could “Make it fun, irreverent, silly but truthful and positive for women, rather than what we are taught to fear about age, supported or denied by statistics and studies, then for me it would be an interesting read.”

As with Shields' other recent projects mentioned above, she was prepared to consider what this time in her life meant in the broader context of society's willingness to talk about menopause.

“This is not only happening to me, but it is also happening to other women,” she says.

Shields is willing to make fun of herself and doesn't take herself too seriously, as previous comedic turns on shows like “Suddenly Susan” and “Friends” attest. People address the former Calvin Klein model by her first name on the street, but that same name can also be a rallying cry for her when her confidence is threatened.

“You're FBS: F—ing Brooke Shields,” her friends will encourage her in those moments.

There's a particularly entertaining anecdote in the book about how his daughter borrowed his designer clothes. Shields felt they should save them for a special occasion, to which her daughter responds with the line above, without the insult.

Shields would have once objected to her celebrity or beauty being talked about in this way. “I used to say, 'Oh, God. Arrest.' Because to me it was arrogance,” she says, noting that her enormous reputation meant she might be overlooked for more serious roles or that the people she wanted to work with had preconceived notions of what she was capable of.

But now she's leaning toward recognition: It's allowed her to make a living and brought her to a point in her career where she's now the subject of retrospectives and reconsiderations, whether by “Pretty Baby” director Lana Wilson , or by turning the mirror back on. itself.

“I'm not comparing myself to Marilyn Monroe but, and I say this in the book, when someone in the public eye dies at their youngest and most famous moment, they are immortalized at that age,” he observes. “When you don't do that,” people can become dissatisfied. “I can't be this idol anymore because I don't look like I do in 'Blue Lagoon,' or whatever.”

Although there is much more to “Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Age,” an apt conclusion is “WWFBSD: What Would Fucking Brooke Shields Do?”