Brooke Shields writes mother of all memoirs

CEBU, Philippines - Brooke Shields’ new book, “There was a Little Girl,” is all about the complicated relationship she had with her late mom and former manager, Teri Shields, who helped launch her daughter’s career as a model and actress from infancy.

The “Lipstick Jungle” star, 49, spoke to the New York Post ahead of the book’s November 18 release, detailing what it was like to write the memoir, and what she remembers of her childhood.

“The hardest part was reliving the happy memories,” she said. “That’s when you think the ending could be different, that there was hope – and then you’re struck with reality and think, ‘What a shame.’”

Shields recalled spending a lot of time in bars with Teri, who drank heavily throughout her life. (She died in 2012 at age 79.) According to the interview, she was staging interventions for her mother by the time she was 13. Sometimes, her mother left her with a male neighbor so she could go out alone. That same male neighbor later boasted at a funeral “that he slept with Brooke (literally, they just slept) when she was a toddler,” the Post states.

“In this day and age, it’s child abuse,” the former Calvin Klein model said. “But in the late 60s, if you were in an apartment building and had a friend there, you dropped your kid off. It was sort of sad that she couldn’t afford a baby-sitter.”

Later, Teri encouraged her daughter “to date nice men like George Michael, Michael Jackson, and John Travolta.” Teri, meanwhile, went out with Woody Allen, among others.

It wasn’t all bad, though. The Post cites an anecdote from Shields’ book about the time Teri “stopped a plane to retrieve the doll Brooke left in the airport.” And it claims Shields said she and her mom worked together to choose every job she took, including the controversial “Pretty Baby” (1978) and “The Blue Lagoon” (1980), both of which featured nude scenes of the then-underage star.

Teri also defended her daughter’s looks, balking when agencies asked her to change something about her appearance. “Because my hair was so light, the modeling people wanted to bleach my eyebrows,” the 80s supermodel recalled. “My mom said, ‘Get outta town!’”

Her childhood wasn’t perfect, she admitted, but it made her who she is. “I had it bad,” she said, “but who I am today is an amalgam of every single part of my past.” (FREEMAN)