Brooke Shields’s daughters looked back on her role in Pretty Baby with discomfort.
At age 11, Brooke appeared in the Louis Malle movie as a child sex worker. The role garnered significant controversy, as Brooke appeared nude and at one point had to kiss costar Keith Carradine — who was around 28 at the time. However, Brooke still speaks fondly of the movie, telling NPR last year, “I value it so much more 1725251770.”
Brooke now has two daughters, Rowan, 21, and Grier, 18. They sat down with People to talk over Brooke’s filmography, making their thoughts on Pretty Baby clear.
Neither one of the daughters have watched the film. “I don’t like this movie. I’ve seen enough clips of it on TikTok,” Grier remarked. She reportedly added, “I would prefer not to watch my mom being sold as an 11-year-old prostitute. I’d rather watch the funny and happy ones.”
As Brooke called it the “best movie” she’s been in, Rowan said, “Is this when you had your first kiss on stage? Your stage kiss, which never counts as a real kiss.” This echos what Keith told Brooke at the time — that the on-set kiss didn’t count as her first one.
When Brooke then noted the age difference between her and Keith — and the fact that she initially couldn’t stop making a face during the scene — Grier added, “See, that’s weird. She had to kiss someone [over] twice her age.” In response, Brooke said, “It was a true story in the 1900s and I was acting. If I was a murderer, would you feel that was ‘weird,’ if I played a murderer?” To this, Grier said, “Yes.”
“It’s more like it never really crossed my mind to say, ‘Movie night, let’s watch Pretty Baby,‘” Rowan affirmed. “I’m either watching Love Island or a new movie, like Minions or Despicable Me. It’s not like I’m purposefully avoiding watching my mother. I loved Mother of the Bride and A Castle for Christmas.“
“The conversations are so different now,” Brooke added, though it’s worth noting that Pretty Baby was incredibly controversial at the time. “It’s a weak argument to say to very aware women, ‘That’s the way it was then.’ It was a norm but that’s not an argument. Nothing I did then, you could get away with doing now.”
You can read more in People here.
