In September 2023, Brooke Shields did something that terrified her. For two weeks, she starred in Previously Owned by Brooke Shields, a one-woman cabaret show at Café Carlyle in New York City's Upper East Side, in which she reflected on her life and career, sharing its highs and lows with vulnerability and humor—and even performing a few original songs.
Considering her extensive list of film and television roles, not to mention a solid foundation of Broadway experience, it might seem surprising that such a seasoned actor would have any reservations about the opportunity. But, as Shields writes in her new memoir, Brooke Shields is Not Allowed to Get Old, “I knew, deep down, that I was afraid of being critiqued … Afraid of facing my own insecurities. Afraid, ultimately, of failing.”
That fear, she realized, was precisely why she had to take on the show. While the experience wasn’t necessarily enjoyable—Shields admits she much prefers playing a character to performing as herself—it helped her rediscover her own power as a performer and woman in her prime.
This revelation is the jumping off point for Brooke Shields is Not Allowed to Get Old, which is both a personal reflection on the pressures and expectations of life in the public eye and a searing critique of a culture that values beauty and youth above all else. Drawing on little-known scientific studies, Shields disproves the stale narrative that midlife marks the beginning of the end for women (spoiler alert: research shows women are generally happier after 40). She also shares personal stories illustrating how aging has empowered her to gain confidence, shed shame, and advocate for herself in areas like her career and healthcare.
Ahead of the book’s release, Shields spoke to Harper's Bazaar about turning a new professional page, discovering her personal style for the first time, and the truths about aging that society would rather women not know.
This is your third book; how was the experience of writing it different from the others? Do you feel like you learned or gained something new from it?
You know, it was a very different book for me to write. Normally, I write from a place of trauma, like having postpartum or losing my mother. This book was not that. It was a joyful process to be at this stage in my life and be able to look back with this really candid eye and go, “Can we just talk about some things in a real way?” There was a catharsis to it, but not in a way where I needed to understand something. It was in the way of, “I'm going to pat myself on the back because I've lived a lot of life, and I'm still standing and both of my feet are planted on the ground, and I feel proud of what I helped create in my particular, personal world.” That's a big thing. I'm almost 60 and there are many things [in the book] that I discovered through the research that was done [while writing it]. So, to have so much of what I felt be either supported or explained from a biological, cultural, historical standpoint expanded how I looked at everything.
The scientific data that you include throughout your book made me feel really good—it validated certain things that I hoped would be true when it came to getting older but didn’t have any facts to back up. For example, you write about how it’s scientifically proven that women’s happiness increases over the age of 40, which is not what society tells women it’s going to be like, right?
We're fed that you're really only happy when you're in that perfect combination of youth and forward possibility. So it’s interesting to have medical professionals say, “No, this is what we have actually found.” You get this freedom to take a deep breath and say, “Wow, 40 is not the beginning of the end. It’s the beginning of a different beginning.” And that is so positive. It fortifies you for the rest of the nutso world that we're living in. The interesting thing to me, and I think that this is what I hope to teach my daughters, is that—all the research is great, right? It provides a sense of security. But think of what would happen if you’d just change your mindset. What if you, all of the sudden, just told yourself, “I am enough?” This sounds like Tony Robbins, but it's like, what if you asked yourself positive questions instead of only asking negative questions? You go about your day differently. It took me a long time to understand that.
Your show at the Carlyle is the anchor for a lot of different conversations within the book. What was it like putting it together and why was it ultimately so personally impactful?
When I think about doing a one woman show, it's not in my wheelhouse. On the one hand, I've been a one woman show, in a way, forever, but I don't thrive in the attention of it. But [the Carlyle show] was an opportunity to get over a fear creatively, and that was one of the reasons why I said yes. I've only ever sung in other peoples’ vernacular, so to speak, and in caricatures, so I thought, “Wouldn't it be interesting if you could find where your voice is?” All I wanted to do was be an entertaining hour and a half in a venue that I was so proud to be invited to and is a huge part of my history as a child. I saw Bobby Short there with my dad. My mom would take me to the Carlyle, and we would wait [to go in] until all the tickets were gone, because we couldn't afford to sit at the tables. But my mom, of course, knew every bartender in New York and so that helped. So I approached the show from this place of total reverence, but I wanted to see how I would fare and if I could judge myself less. I thought, why not? But I don't know if I want to do that again. I love performing as characters, but I don't necessarily love performing as me. But I needed to have a version of my own approval and at least walk out of it saying, “You don't necessarily need to do it again, but you did it.” I was proud of my voice. I was proud of what I wrote. So it was one of those things where I was like, okay, you've got another tool in your kit, should you need it. I don't know if it's going to move the needle [for my career] at all. It probably didn't. But who cares?
But for you, personally, it did move the needle.
Yeah, it did, because I'm no longer afraid. I don't think my voice has to be anything it’s not and that doesn't make me less of a talent. Here I am. This is the space that I occupy in my world. And guess what? It's enough for me. And if it's not enough for you, that actually is not my fault and not my problem.
One of the biggest themes in the book is the importance of self-advocacy when it comes to your career, your health, and your relationships. Do you feel like that empowerment in terms of being able to voice your needs came with age?
There’s this lack of feeling that you have to ask for permission that comes with age, and that is a pure form of empowerment. You can still be gracious, and you can still say things with grace, but it's like, “I am entitled to be here right now, and I don't have to apologize.” I don't think society wants us to feel that way because if we as women are not kept slightly marginalized, at least emotionally, then we're formidable, and that's terrifying to certain institutions. Self-advocacy is something that I had the luxury to be able to learn. But it shouldn't be a privilege. It should be a given. The thing is, we're not necessarily taught that, right? When a man asks a question in a hospital, there is a different kind of response. I felt it was really important for young women and for my daughters to know that you're entitled to know what's happening to your own body, and asking for that doesn't mean you're a bitch and it doesn't mean you're bossy, and it doesn't mean you're needy—it means you're human.
And with the incoming administration, I think self-advocacy is going to be more important than ever because of the backtracking we’ve already been seeing when it comes to women's health care.
Absolutely. But when I was criticized for taking medication postpartum, the outpouring of outrage was what helped [the destigmatization of it] become a movement. So maybe this will galvanize energy in a different way. Maybe we’ll realize we're going to have to be smarter. Every time that has challenge been put to us we've risen to the occasion.
This year, you also started a new business venture when you launched your haircare brand Commence. Tell me about starting it.
This company came out of my heart and soul, and it came from conversations like this one. We basically harnessed a community and asked them what they felt they were missing in in their lives; there was a real emotional piece to it. Then we realized, okay, even though monetizing a community was not a goal, there is an important white space that needs to be addressed and that is haircare, beauty, and care in general for women over 40. It quickly became clear that hair was the most obvious point of insecurity and frustration for women. So we go deeply into that. I want to be a brand that is based in community whose mission is to help women over 40 grow an age into this era of their lives with joy and with a sense of fearlessness that is confidence-based.
Has the way you get dressed changed with your personal evolution? In knowing your body better than ever, do you feel like you know how to dress it better than ever?
Absolutely. For the first time, I am looking at clothes with a sense of my own taste. For so long, I either was just doing a modeling job for other people or I was trying to look like other people, and now I'm working with different stylists who understand different parts of who I am. I like my body in a different way now and I'm not as hard on it. I'm owning a sex appeal that I never leant into because it didn't feel like it was my own. I’ve realized I feel most powerful when there are masculine and feminine elements [to my look]. I've always been more downtown than I have been uptown. But what does that even mean? I had a certain Upper East Side wardrobe, which is beautiful and its chic, but it was missing something. Sometimes I feel like being funky. Sometimes I feel like dressing like I'm Jackie Onassis or Princess Diana. Sometimes I feel like I want to be a rocker. And it's like, guess what, Brooke? It’s okay. So that’s what's emerging. And I always like humor, so there's always got to be a little bit of something that shows that I'm not taking myself too seriously.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
