Thread by @thetimes

Following her rise to fame, @BrookeShields and her face defined the Eighties and became a byword for its provocative popular culture.

Her sexuality has made headlines ever since but she never felt exploited, she tells @thetimes. thetimes.co.uk/article/brooke…

Aged 56 and in the sixth decade of her career, Shields is still very much here, all cheekbones and eyebrows.

“I just keep moving,” she says with a shrug. “I didn’t want to go away.”

Despite (or perhaps because of) modelling swimwear from the age of 15, Shields has spent a lifetime battling with her body image.

“I was always called the ‘athletic’ one. ‘She’s the athletic type. She’s a handsome woman. She’s a workhorse, a mule.’” She rolls her eyes.

Until a few years ago she wouldn’t wear a bikini.

“My kids were the ones who said, ‘Mum, you can’t wear that muumuu. You have to show your body.’ Body image has changed. These kids celebrate their shape.”

Last year she posted bikini shots of herself.

“I want my girls to explore and experience and not feel guilt and not feel shame. I look at [my daughter] as an 18-year-old and just think, ‘Wow, she is so much more in her body and she owns her sexuality.’”

“I think the liberation for me took longer than most. Being so shut off from my sexuality for so long, and the flip side, smouldering on magazine covers, it confuses the hell out of you.”

A couple of years ago, Shields began to feel that her demographic was not represented and she wanted to do something about it. “I am in a prime now, a different type of prime, and they’re not marketing to me.”

“We [post-menopausal women] control 80% of the purse strings, but the message out there is, ‘You’re done.’ And I really feel like I’m just beginning.”

Read the full interview with @BrookeShields: thetimes.co.uk/article/brooke…