"It was a transition that I needed"- When Brooke Shields made her feelings clear about firing her mother as her manager

Brooke Shields has become an iconic name in the industry's history, thanks to her notoriety from working on Pretty Baby, where the 11-year-old Shields did some very bold scenes, receiving immense backlash. As she was still just a child, the primary backlash came to her mother, Teri Sheilds, who was widely criticized for letting her daughter play the part.

Teri Shields served as Brooke's manager for a significant time, during which she faced many criticisms. Moreover, she also had a very complicated relationship with her daughter, something that has haunted Brooke for almost all her life.

Teri remained Brooke's manager till the 1990s, after which Brooke fired her as her manager. This was also the time when she married tennis star Andre Agassi. In an interview with AARP from 2024, she discussed how firing her mother from the post of manager was a key step in her career and how being with Agassi gave her to confidence to this.

Dissecting the difficult step, Brooke Shields explained:

"It was a transition that I needed. I wasn’t strong enough to separate from my mother on my own. I kept falling back in. With Andre, it also felt good to feel smaller than another, because he was so famous and number 1 in the world. Everywhere we went, he had tons of bodyguards. I could sit back because it wasn’t my world. He was the first one out of the car when we arrived at events. It was a real kind of respite."

Things further changed after Shields was assaulted by a top Hollywood executive, something she blamed herself for. In this same interview, she spoke more about getting out from the shadow of her mother and becoming her own person.

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"I didn’t need her, and then who was she if I didn’t need her?"- Brooke Shields on leaving her mother to pursue her own path

Brooke and Teri Shields were quite strongly entwined together both in terms of career and their emotional connection. Despite being heavily dependent on her mother, Brooke Shields chose to break free and be her own person. This eventually led to a separation that her mother labeled as a "divorce."

In this same interview with AARP, Shields continued to expand on the separation from her mother after Agassi came into her life. She said:

"After the assault, I was mad and sad, like, “I cannot live without performing. I can’t. This is not fair. You can’t take this away from me.”...I needed to find ways to do it. I studied, studied, studied and took serious acting classes. And I replaced my mom with a real agent."

Brooke Shields continued:

"My mother kept calling it a divorce. And I was like, “Oh Mom, I’m still your daughter, but if I’m going to do this, I have to do this on my own. I’ll make my own mistakes."...But that meant I didn’t need her, and then who was she if I didn’t need her? Empty nest to my mother was like death."

Brooke and Teri Shields continued to have a troubled relationship after this and Teri passed away in 2012 at the age of 79.

Brooke Shields has since reinvented her image and continues to remain active in the industry now. She most recently appeared in Mother of the Bride and Gracie & Pedro: Pets to the Rescue.