Brooke Shields Called A 1980s Barbara Walters Interview About Her Calvin Klein Ad “Practically Criminal”
I’m not sure if we’ve actually gotten any less appalling as a society since the 1980s, but at least we have the good sense to look back and identify where we were wrong while we forge ahead and continue to be wrong in new and worse ways. Back in 1980, everybody lost their shit over 15-year-old Brooke Shields’ Calvin Klein’s ad campaign in which she declares “you want to know the only thing that comes between me and my Calvin’s? Nothing,” which, if you’re not a dumb kid, is highly risque! And according to Brooke, she was a dumb kid at the time and had no idea why adults were suddenly clutching their pearls at the mere mention of her name. Brooke recently appeared on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast and talked about a lascivious 1980 interview she did with Barbara Walters, which opened with Barbara asking the teen what her measurements are, “practically criminal.” OK, settle down Hasselbeck, this has nothing to do with you!
Brooke’s mom, Kris Jenner‘s personal Saint and hero, Teri Shields, had already offered up her 10-year-old daughter, fully nude, dolled up and slathered in grease, as the subject of photos taken Garry Gross (fitting) for a Playboy publication called Sugar and Spice, years before she had Brooke playing Lolita in Denim for Calvin Klein. And Teri was at Brooke’s side when she was interviewed by Barbara, which made it even more ridiculous when Barbara got all up in this kid’s business on national TV. According to People:
During an appearance on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, Shields spoke about how she was over-sexualized by the media and the public in response to the now-infamous campaign.
In the ads, a then-15-year-old Shields modeled the jeans while reciting different lines, one of which was: “You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.”
After the backlash, Shields did a number of interviews, including one with Barbara Walters, she was asked a series of intimate and invasive questions about her sexual history.
While discussing the sexualization of young celebrities during the podcast episode, Shepard called her interview with Walters “maddening.”
“It’s practically criminal,” Shields agreed. “It’s not journalism.”
Here’s the ad, which looking at it now, is truly unhinged. Like, lingering crotch shots aside, what is she doing to her eyebrows! Brooke’s lucky she had plenty to spare.
There was also these and this one which would have worked well for a Cirque du Soleil audition tape Cirque du Soleil had existed back then. In the interview with Barbara, Barbara asked Brooke what her measurements are, clearly disappointed Brooke didn’t whip off her shirt and bra to check. She also asked “Would you be a mother like your mother?,” you know, that pushy drunk lady breathing down you neck as we speak? The Daily Mail reports:
She then probed Brooke and her mother about their relationship, saying: ‘Would you be a mother like your mother? What about the people who say she had no childhood’, to which she replied: ‘Well I’m still going through my childhood.’
Speaking to both Brooke and Teri, she said: ‘What about people who accuse you, sitting here? Is going through your childhood?’
Brooke replied: ‘I’d rather do this than not do it at all. I’m enjoying this, I think it’s an experience that I would not like to miss.’
Barbara probed: ‘Do you have any secrets from your mother?’, as Brooke replied: ‘We tell each other everything. I mean I’m sure there’s little things I don’t want to tell her. We tell each other everything I think I should tell her.’
I’m getting strong Jr. Dakota Johnson vibes with this one. Let’s not pretend Ellen didn’t learn how to give a needling, petty interview from the best! Here’s the video of that interview.
Brooke spoke to Vogue recently and gave some insight into that Calvin’s ad. She said she really had no idea it would cause such a stir because she was very naive at the time. According to People:
“I was away when they all came out, and then started hearing, ‘Oh, the commercials have been banned here, and Canada won’t play them.’ And paparazzi and people screaming at me and screaming at my mother, ‘How could you?’ It just struck me as so ridiculous, the whole thing,” Shields recalled.
She continued, “They take the one commercial, which is a rhetorical question. I was naive, I didn’t think anything of it. I didn’t think it had to do with underwear, I didn’t think it was sexual in nature. I would say it about my sister, ‘Nobody can come between me and my sister.’ ”
Shields remembered being shocked that she was being “berated” by the public, who assumed she knew the intention behind the commercials. “I think the assumption is that I was much more savvy than I ever really was.”
Somehow, despite holding the dubious title of America’s Sexiest Child for about a decade, Brooke turned out pretty great. According to People, in her 2014 memoir, There Was A Little Girl: The real Story of My Mother and Me, Brooke opened up about her mom’s alcoholism and attempts to “orchestrate” and control her love life.
Teri, a lifelong alcoholic who often left Brooke with a neighbor when she went out drinking at night, was outrageous and controversial from the start. It was Teri who often orchestrated her young daughter’s “dates” with famous heartthrobs – and insisted she include a chapter on her virginity in her teenage memoir, making her, as Shields puts it, “the most celebrated virgin of our time.”
Turns out Brooke didn’t lose her virginity until she was 22 and in college. To Dean Cain, of all people. At Princeton, of all places. Yes, that dummy went to Princeton.
“He was incredibly and painfully patient with me regarding sex,” she writes. “I made him wait and wait and my mom kept track.”
Brooke’s mom passed away in 2012 from complications due to dementia. Brooke says she had her cremated and keeps the ashes on her bar so she can “remain forever close to the two most important things in her life: me and booze.” This begs the question, will the Kardashian sisters have Kris’ ashes injected into their butts when she dies?
Here’s Brooke talking about those Calvin ads for Vogue.
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Pic: Wenn.com