It’s been more than 40 years since Brooke Shields made her famous ads for Calvin Klein jeans, but she’s still processing the way people reacted ― especially Barbara Walters.
Shields was 15 when she endorsed the jeans with the tagline, “You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.”
Now at 56, Shields is reflecting on how she was over-sexualized by the media and the public. And she told “Armchair Expert” podcast host Dax Shepard that one interview still bugs her: the one she did with Walters.
Shields said some of the questions were “practically criminal” and “not journalism.”
During the interview, Walters asked the teen actress her measurements, whether she wanted to be like her mother and whether she kept any secrets from her, according to NBC News.
Shields was visibly uncomfortable and told Walters she was still growing up as a teen.
Shepard also pointed out that Shields was the victim of two opposing narratives: one where she is “overtly sexual” and “a sexual tigress,” and another where she was naive teen “being taken advantage of.”
“They [the press] couldn’t figure out what they were trying to say about you,” Shepard said.
“They were mad at themselves for not figuring it out and taking it out on me,” Shields responded.
Shields told Vogue in October that she didn’t think the ad “was about underwear or sexual in nature” and admitted, “I was naive.”
You can hear the entire podcast below.
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