Brooke Shields: It’s a ‘miracle’ I ‘survived’ being raped in my 20s

Brooke Shields has opened up about being sexually assaulted by a Hollywood boss in her 20s, saying it’s a “miracle” she survived the ordeal.

Brooke Shields says it’s a ‘miracle’ she survived her early trauma after being sexually assaulted in her 20s. Picture: Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for Vanity Fair

Brooke Shields said it’s a “miracle” she “survived” after being raped by a powerful Hollywood executive when she was in her 20s.

“It’s taken me a long time to process it,” the actress, now 57, told People after revealing the assault in her Hulu documentary, Pretty Baby.

“Doing the documentary, you see it all together, and it’s a miracle that I survived,” she said.

“I’m more angry now than I was able to be then. If you’re afraid, you’re rightfully so. They are scary situations. They don’t have to be violent to be scary.”

She said the sexual assault occurred shortly after she graduated from Princeton University in 1987, New York Post reports.

Brooke Shields has opened up about the sexual assault when she was in her 20s. Picture: Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for Vanity Fair

The Blue Lagoon star recalled being at the “lowest point of [her] career” when she met up with the unnamed executive for dinner, which she thought would result in her “getting a movie” role. After their meal, she agreed to go back to his hotel to call a cab.

But Shields said in the three-part documentary, which premieres on April 3, that the executive began “wrestling” on top of her, causing her to fear she would “get choked out or something”.

“I didn’t fight that much,” she said. “I didn’t. I just absolutely froze. I thought one ‘No’ should have been enough, and I just thought, ‘Stay alive and get out,’ and I just shut it out.”

Shields shot to fame at a young age, pictured here in 1996.

The model explained that she initially blamed herself for going to the hotel with the man in the first place.

“It was really easy to disassociate because by then it was old hat and because it was a fight-or-flight type of choice” she told People. “Fight was not an option, so you just leave your body. ‘You’re not there. It didn’t happen.’”

Shields’ mainstream break was in the now-controversial 1980 film Blue Lagoon, when she was just 14.

Shields noted that she was sexualised in Hollywood for decades, beginning when she appeared nude in the 1978 film Pretty Baby when she was just 11 years old.

“It was just easier to shut myself off. I was good at it,” she told the magazine.

The star married Chris Henchy in 2001, and they share two daughters: Rowan, 19, and Grier, 16.

This story originally appeared on New York Post and was reproduced with permission

Originally published as Brooke Shields: It’s a ‘miracle’ I ‘survived’ being raped in my 20s