Brooke Shields' new memoir, "Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed To Get Old," is out now, and the 59-year-old model and author shares it all, opening up about her first marriage to tennis pro - Andre Agassi.
© GettyShields and Agassi said "I do" in 1997, after dating for two years. By this time, her career was flourishing as an actor and model. Despite her success, being a young woman in this industry is hard, with societal pressures and negative feedback about your looks coming from all directions.
In chapter six of the book, she recalled, “I was very specifically told I was not runway-worthy, because I wasn’t skinny enough." “Being told you are ‘the face,’ you begin to believe that’s all you are — a face. From the neck up, I was Brooke Shields, but it was like my body existed in a different reality," the Blue Lagoon star explained.
She would open up to Agassi, whose career was also at its peak, as the world no.1 tennis player. "When I would profess my insecurities to my first husband, he would always say, ‘I wish you could see yourself the way I see you,’” she shared, per People.
But when she asked, “Will you still love me if I’m big and fat?” (referring to pregnancy weight gain), Agassi’s response was blunt: "I love you too much to let you get big and fat!”
“I definitely did not see that coming and must admit I started to spin a bit,” The Suddenly Susan star admits. “But we all know how that relationship turned out,” she continued.
© GettyThe couple divorced in 1999 after two years of marriage, and what came next made her "glad" she never had kids with the former athlete. According to the actress, during their separation, he told her, "Be thankful we didn’t have children, because I would not have made this easy for you." "It would have been a disaster. When we got divorced, he made that very clear," she wrote.
© GettyAgassi, who remarried actress Steffi Graf in 2001, has his own memoir, which he used a ghostwriter for, "Open," released in 2009. Shields has said in the past that she sent him suggestions to make the book more accurate after he asked for her input, "Everything was just off," she recalled on the podcast "WTF."
But according to Shields, she got a letter in response where Agassi said, "I couldn't change any of the things that you corrected because that's not how I remember it, and it is my book." They haven't talked since.
The model has opened up about their relationship in past memoirs. In her 2014 memoir, "There Was a Little Girl," she acknowledged the marriage was a mistake but also the positives writing, "He welcomed me and my mother and anybody I loved. He is a really good human being."
Shields is now married to Chris Henchy, and they share two daughters, Rowan, 21, and Grier, 18.
