Brooke Shields was walking in New York City with her daughters when the realization hit her. Although she’s been famous for most of her life, Brooke noted that passersby were casting admiring glances at her children, but not at her. She had become invisible. “I had every single feeling all at once,” she shares in her new book, Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old. “Protectiveness, pride, melancholy — it all smacked me upside the head.”
On the cusp of turning 60, Brooke notes that she doesn’t feel old, but she doesn’t feel “as invincible as I did in my youth.” Despite wrinkles, gray hair and creaky joints, the real problem, she notes, is society’s perception of aging. “Maybe it took seeing myself through the eyes of other people to fully understand that, in fact, I was entering a new era of life,” she says.
Brooke Shields Reflects on Aging and More in Memoir
Brooke admits that she’ll always be a “work in progress,” but she’s very happy with the confidence and emotional maturity she has earned. Things like spending time in peaceful solitude or sleeping late are pleasures she rarely allowed herself when she was younger. She has also learned to accept the things she cannot control. “Sometimes [stuff] just happens,” she says. “It doesn’t mean that you aren’t thankful enough or that you’re moving too fast or your priorities are out of whack. Sometimes there is no rhyme or reason.”
Brooke says she’s learned to stop worrying and let go of regrets. She’s given herself permission to say no to things she doesn’t want to do. “I’m the one making the calls in my life — not my mother or the media or Hollywood or my family — which is something I’ve never felt before,” says the star, who feels excited about this new chapter. “Aging isn’t just ‘better than the alternative,’ as the saying goes,” she says. “It’s better than what came before.”
