Brooke Shields said she’s surprised that she’s become “more lenient” with her daughters and their boyfriends after she didn’t lose her virginity until she was 22.
The 60-year-old actor spoke about her relationship with her two daughters — Rowan, 22, and Grier, 19 — during Friday’s episode of Today with Jenna and Friends. Speaking to host Jenna Bush Hager, Shields detailed how she has open conversations with her children about their boyfriends.
“Holiday plans have sort of all been overtaken by my daughters’ friends. So they’re all coming to our house,” Shields, who shares her daughters with husband Chris Henchy, explained. “And what’s been interesting this time is that there’s boyfriend situations, and there’s only so many beds. And it’s a discussion.”
The Blue Lagoon star noted that while she’s “usually the tougher one,” when compared to her daughter’s father, her parenting style has changed.
“For some reason, because they all want to be there, there’s something that just makes me feel like, ‘Well, at least they all want to be together,’” she said about daughters, who both have “serious boyfriends.”
“If they can be respectful and certain things can be where they’re supposed to be.
She confessed that she feels “weird” about being such a laid-back mother, especially given some of her dating experiences during her twenties.
“I just cannot believe that I’m the person who’s more lenient when I didn’t even lose my virginity until I was 22. I was in a locked box,” she added. She continued to recall her childhood when she was raised “Catholic” and by parents who were “strict.”
“I had the antithesis of the wild existence,” Shields said.
The former model further explained how she and her husband view their daughters differently as they continue to grow up.
“The fathers really look at their baby girls as perpetually baby girls. I’ve had to say, ‘Come on, let’s pick our battles here.’ He’s like, ‘You have to have that conversation. I’m not having that conversation,’” she added.
Shield previously opened up about losing her virginity to actor Dean Cain at the age of 22 when they were attending Princeton University together.
In her 1985 memoir, On Your Own, she opened up about being a virgin at the age of 20, and she’s since said she regrets writing about that.
“I mean, I think that it was, in hindsight, a bit of a mistake for me to be so open about my virginity because it never left me alone,” she said during a 2022 episode of her podcast Now What? With Brooke Shields. “I ended up not penning it myself, and that was a huge mistake because the publisher didn’t want what I wrote. I wrote a very in-depth first chapter, and they didn’t want it that way.”
Despite what her book was about, the Pretty Baby star said that the media opted to focus on this one chapter, which resulted in her being labeled as “the most famous virgin in the world.”
Shields has also always been open about her bond with her daughters. However, last month, she revealed that when the time comes to pass down her beloved jewelry, only Grier would be the one to inherit them.
“My older daughter has lost every piece I’ve ever given her. I literally cannot do it again,” she told Only Natural Diamonds in June.
She added of her younger daughter: “She understands the difference between real and ‘real.’ It’s not about the gold or diamonds alone — she sees the history, the workmanship, the story behind the institution of these houses.”
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