Brooke Shields has spoken out about the loneliness she felt during her time at Princeton and how students actively avoided her on campus.
The 57-year-old Endless Love actress made the revelation during episode one of her new Hulu documentary, Pretty Baby.
Brooke took a hiatus from her successful movie career in the 1980s to study at Princeton, where she majored in Romance language and literatures, focusing on French literature, and graduated with honors in 1987.
At first, the actress, who would call her mother five times a day, said she found the transition difficult.
Brooke Shields revealed she felt ‘so lonely’ when she first started at Princeton
One of friends said people were ‘diligently avoiding her’ and she even called her mom saying she wanted to go home
‘It was so lonely, it was so lonely. And people tried to be so nice, just tried to give me my space,’ Brooke revealed.
‘And I was like, “I don’t want space, I want to go home or I want friends. Please don’t respect me, please don’t respect my space.”
‘So I went from people charging at me, to people completely avoiding me, and then I’d just miss my mommy. We’d talked about it in interviews, that umbilical cord had never been cut.’
Brooke described how she had a preconceived notion of what college would be like.
‘You saw it in movies, you had the ivy and old buildings and the arches. I wanted that experience,’ she said.
‘Education was sort of the one thing my dad could feel good about.’
Friend Isobel Colman said many of the students would be ‘diligently avoiding’ Brooke.
‘Princeton attracts a certain type and everybody thinks highly of themself and they’re like: “Well I’m not going to be sucked into that circus,”‘ Isobel said.
The actress said her father really valued her education. She studied Romance language and literatures, and graduated with honors in 1987
A newspaper clipping from when Brooke started her education at the Ivy League school
Brooke also explained that it was unusual for a female Hollywood star to go to college back in the 1980s, with cultural psychologist Jeffrey Alexander saying: ‘At the time, of course, she really was breaking the glass because a sex symbol doesn’t go to Princeton.’
She recalled calling her mom, Teri, and telling her that she wanted to come home.
But Teri remained firmed and told her: ‘Honey, you’ll never forgive yourself. You will be so mad at yourself if you don’t follow through on this.’
Eventually Brooke did find her feet, joining the Princeton Triangle Club, described as ‘the nation’s oldest touring collegiate musical comedy troupe.’
‘I found all the really creative guys and girls, we just wanted to do comedy and musicals, and it was fun,’ she added.
At Princeton, Brooke also started to find her own voice and autonomy, and the more push back she got, the more resistant she became.
‘The more public scrutiny and criticism I experienced, the more I thought: “Hell no, you’re not taking this away from me,”‘ she said.
‘It kind of morphed into this big rebellion.’
It was at Princeton that Brooke started to find her own voice instead of relying on the adults around her
She joined the Princeton Triangle Club who were a musical comedy troupe
The Blue Lagoon actress also touched on controversy surrounding her Calvin Klein ads that she filmed when she was 16
Brooke said before attending college she would wait for her mother or somebody else to tell her what was important.
‘Directors never asked me what I thought about a character, but I learned I could think for myself. That’s also not appealing to Hollywood, an actress who can think for herself,’ she said.
She also dated fellow actor Dean Cain during her time at Princeton, and recounted how she ran ‘butt naked’ from the room after losing her virginity aged 22.
In the documentary, the 57-year-old said she felt ‘regret’ about how she first had sex with Dean, and that he was ‘more comfortable with the sexual part’ of their relationship than she was.
Brooke laughed as she recalled her first time sleeping with Dean when she was a junior in college.
‘When we finally had sex, I immediately ran out of the room, ran down the hall butt naked, just running. I didn’t know where I was going,’ she said.
Brooke pictured with Dean Cain in 1995. The two started dating when they were in college
‘He ran after me with the duvet and grabbed a hold of me and said, “Where are you going?” He said, “I’m not going anywhere, I’m not leaving you, you’re the same person.” He got it immediately and I just cried.
‘I wanted to jump into the personal relationship and the love and the commitment,’ she said in the documentary. ‘We had to teach each other about each other.’
The Blue Lagoon actress also touched on controversy surrounding her Calvin Klein ads that she filmed when she was about 16.
In the commercial, one of several that Brooke filmed with legendary photographer Richard Avedon for Calvin Klein, the then-teen posed in a pair of blue jeans and said, ‘You wanna know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.’
‘I jumped at the chance because it was acting, it was just an exercise in memorization, in literary reference and I had to be smart to do it,’ Brooke said in the new documentary.
‘There was nothing ever in me that ever had the idea that it was sexual… that’s slightly naive.’
Previously Brooke told Vogue: ‘If they had intended on the double entendre, they didn’t explain it to me.
‘It didn’t faze me. It didn’t sort of come into my psyche as it being anything overtly sexual, sexualized in any way.’
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