Brooke Shields has spoken about a frightening incident at a chaotic Pretty Baby screening in 1978, when a fan nearly cut off part of her hair.
The American actor, now 61, rose to prominence in the late 1970s after starring in Pretty Baby, playing Violet — a 12-year-old who is groomed into prostitution like her mother.
The movie sparked intense backlash internationally, with some places refusing to show it because of its graphic content. Much of the criticism focused on Shields’ age — she was 11 during filming — and the inclusion of nude and semi-nude scenes.
Looking back decades later, Shields has continued to discuss what it was like to be at the center of the controversy, including the public frenzy surrounding the film.
In her memoir There Was a Little Girl, she described a “scary” and “disorderly” experience during a screening at the Cannes Film Festival in 1978, where one person in the crowd tried to snip her hair.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Shields said: “I had never seen frenzy like that. It was so obscene but absurd. I couldn’t identify with it. . . . The magnitude of the attention was really scary.”
She recalled how her mother’s partner, Bob Karsian, ended up acting as protection as they attempted to move through what she described as a “wall of people.”
Shields wrote: “A fan had reached out to me and grabbed a clump of my hair and was just about to cut it off with a pair of scissors,”
She added: “Bob karate-chopped the arm away and I escaped.”
According to Shields, the adult who tried to cut her hair later expressed remorse, telling her, ‘I don’t know what made me do that,’ she recalled.
More recently, a 2023 documentary released on Disney+ revisited Shields’ life and career, tracing her early years in the public eye, the scrutiny she faced as a child star, and her sense of freedom later in adulthood.
Although she recognizes why the film remains contentious, Shields has said she doesn’t regret taking the role.
“It was the best creative project I’ve ever been associated with, the best group of people I’ve ever been blessed enough to work with,” she said.
However, when speaking with PEOPLE in 2024, Shields shared that her daughters viewed the film differently.
Her 20-year-old daughter Grier Hammond Henchy said: “I don’t like this movie. I’ve seen enough of it on TikTok.
“I would prefer not to watch my mom being sold, as an 11-year-old prostitute. I’d rather watch the funny and happy ones.”