Brooke Shields was at a party, drifting off. The host, a small man with bare feet, was giving her a tour of his wine cellar and she was losing interest, if she’s being honest – which she is now as a matter of principle, after a lifetime of smiling politely and pretending everything’s fine. Her mind was wandering. They say wine gets better with age, she was thinking, “but isn’t there a moment when it turns to jam? And I said to him, ‘I’m 58 and I’m wondering if…’ I didn’t even get the rest of the sentence out before he said, ‘Oh, I wish you hadn’t told me that.’”
That’s curious, she replied. “I asked him, ‘Did my age make him older?’ I was interested in the psychology of it, that kneejerk reaction.” It was partly, she thinks, her fame – people imprint on a child star, and when they grow up they take it personally. “It felt so indicative of what we do to women, too. And we do the same thing to ourselves – we get caught up, chasing something that’s gone.” It wasn’t the first time somebody had taken offence at the fact she was no longer 15 and she knew it would not be the last, but it was this conversation that inspired her new book about fame, women and the complexity of ageing. She’s called it, Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed To Get Old.
