Age has nothing on Brooke Shields.
The model and actress who first rose to fame at age 12 in Pretty Baby is now 59, yet she still feels (and, let’s be honest, looks) like she is in her mid-30s.
“I feel 36. There’s no correlation between 36 and 59. The math does not add up,” she says in an interview with NewBeauty. “Then sometimes I go down the steps, and my knees feel 59.”
Her newest book, due out from Macmillan Publishers in January 2025, is aptly titled Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old: Thoughts on Aging as a Woman, and aims to crystallize the icon’s thoughts and feelings on growing older, especially under the public’s watchful eye.
“People continuously expressed to me that they somehow want me to still be the way I was in my teens because they’ve imprinted on me in [the films] Blue Lagoon or Endless Love, [ads for] Calvin Klein or something else,” she says. “You meet somebody that you had [pinned up] in your locker when they are in their 50s, and it’s a shock to your system.”
But Shields isn’t just older (at least in years); she is also wiser. This is why she teamed up with GSK’s Thrive@50+ campaign. As part of the campaign, Shields directed a short film that features football mom Donna Kelce, actress Gina Torres and reality TV star Susan Noles, who open up on life after turning the big 5-0, including their risk for shingles and the importance of getting vaccinated.
“As a young person, I just felt invincible,” Shields shares. “I’m more aware now of everything from my risks of shingles, for instance, [brittle bone disease] osteoporosis and all the things that you don’t really think of when you’re a kid.”
Shingles, a viral infection that causes a painful rash, isn’t sexy, but Shields has never shied away from talking about things that no one else wants to. She heroically came forward to discuss postpartum depression after she gave birth to her daughter Rowan, now 21, in 2003. Her other daughter, Grier, is 18.
“I never set out to be influential,” says the founder of hair company Commence and president of the Actors’ Equity Association. “We shy away from talking about things that make us embarrassed or afraid, but I am not afraid to share my fears and experiences if that can shed some light and give other women their power back.”
With age comes power and hindsight, she says. “Enjoy your body as it is. Just when we start coming into our own power as women, we realize we should have really enjoyed what we had when we had it full steam.”
And she’s hoping this wisdom rubs off on her two daughters. “My girls see their mom taking an active role in her own health and dictating the way she wants her life to go, and I think that the more I put out these messages, the more they’re going to remember all of this.”
Thriving After 50
None of this is to say that staying in shape and maintaining her dewy glow and signature bushy brows isn’t more challenging post-menopause.
“I work out a lot,” she says. “I don’t love to, but I feel so much better afterward.”
Since she broke her femur in an accident a few years back, Shields has become a Pilates devotee. “As a dancer, Pilates makes the difference in strengthening and lengthening.”
She also likes to eat and isn’t afraid to own it. “I like food. I like really good food. I’ll go to Italy and eat pasta absolutely every day,” she shares. “I really try now to make a conscious effort to limit alcohol, eat healthfully and get sleep.”
Her choices are more about being healthy and feeling good than fitting into her Calvins. “My big thing is I need to make sure that I eat regularly,” she says. “I will get too busy and not eat anything, and then I feel sick or dizzy, so I have to make sure that I eat protein throughout the day.”
Shields has become a moisturizer junkie. “I’m absolutely always in need of heavy moisturizer,” she says. “I get dehydrated really quickly. My scalp has actually gotten drier.”
As far as her coveted brows, they are surprisingly low maintenance. “I just try to take the errant little spider legs away, but I really don’t do anything,” she says. “I had a little dip, so I tried microblading (a tattooing technique that fills in brows), but the ink bled so it looked [Groucho Marx] or Frida Kahlo, and so I had to get that removed.”
