05 April 2023 , 10:22
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Brooke Shields had to deal with a lot as a child, including her mother's struggles with alcoholism.
The actress was forced to learn "how to protect herself" from her mother, Teri Shields, and would often "duck and cover" when Teri came home in a drunken rage.
In her new Hulu documentary, Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, the 57-year-old said her mother's alcoholism made her emotionally abusive.
"You never know what to expect with an alcoholic," Brooke said. "It wasn't abusive, but it was emotionally abusive because I felt sort of abandoned every time she wasn't herself."
Actress Laura Linney was a childhood friend of Brooke's and said they would have to "duck and cover" whenever Teri came home in a drunken rage.
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Brooke's mother struggled with her alcohol addiction (Getty Images)"When Teri was sober she was raucous and fun and loud and big and took up space. And when she was not in a good way it was duck and cover," she said in the two-part documentary.
Laura recounted a number of instanced when she and Brooke would be playing when Teri came home drunk.
She said Brooke always knew how to avoid conflict with her mother, adding: "I would follow her lead, she would know what to do, how to do it, how to protect herself, what room to go into, what doors to lock.
"We could both hear the keys would rattle, we would go to a room, we would make sure we were safe.
Laura Linney was a childhood friend of Brooke's (Instagram/brookeshields)
Laura said she would follow her friend's lead (FilmMagic)"Teri would come home very drunk and then we would wait until it got quiet, and then we would come out."
Laura said she understood why Brooke often defended her mother, despite being frightened of her.
"You want to protect the people you love even if they're deeply flawed and damaged and damaging."
In the documentary, Brooke also admitted she was forced to stage an intervention when she was 13 and managed to find a rehab facility close to their home.
Teri agreed to stop drinking, but Brooke said it didn't last much longer than a few weeks.
Brooke has opened up about her life in her new documentary (Hulu)Elsewhere, she said her mother had failed to protect her when she was forced to kiss her 27-year-old co-star when she was just 11 years old.
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In 1978, Brooke rose to fame in the film Pretty Baby in which she played a child prostitute.
She had to seductively kiss her co-star Keith Carradine, who had to reassure her that it was "all make-believe".
Brooke now finds it difficult to think about the incident and said she wouldn't have allowed the same thing to happen to her daughters - Rowan, 19, and Grier, 16.