Brooke Shields has called out Meghan Markle for being “too precious and serious”.
The actor made the claim while recalling her decision to interrupt the Duchess of Sussex during an International Women’s Day panel led by broadcaster Katie Couric at Austin’s SXSW festival in March 2024.
Shields, 60, said that Markle’s lengthy answer to a question about gender equlity set an earnest tone, which forced her to lighten proceedings with a joke due to fears the audience would switch off.
Speaking on the latest episode of India Hicks’s podcast, Shields commented: “Katie asks the first question to Meghan and she talks about how at a young age, she was already advocating for women.
“She starts telling a story about how when she was 11 – and she keeps saying, ‘Well, when I was 11, I saw this commercial and they were talking about how washing dishes was for women. And she said, ‘I didn’t think only women wash dishes. It wasn’t fair. So I wrote to the company.’”
Shields said Markle repeatedly kept highlighting acts she did when she was 11. “She kept saying she was 11! She wrote to the company, they changed the text, they changed the commercial.
“It was just too precious, and I was like, they’re not going to want to sit here for 45 minutes and listen to anybody be precious or serious.”
It was at this stage that Shields interrupted Markle. She recalled: “I go, ‘Excuse me, I’m so sorry, I’ve got to interrupt you there for one minute.’ I was trying not to be rude, but I wanted to be funny because it was so serious.”
Shields quipped: “I just want to give everybody here a context as to how we’re different. When I was 11, I was playing a prostitute.”
The actor, whose comment prompted laughter from the audience, was referring to her controversial role in Louis Malle’s 1978 film Pretty Baby, in which she plays a child sex worker.
Fortunately, “the place went insane”, with Shields saying the panel felt “more relaxed after that”.
Shields’ role in Pretty Baby led to widespread criticism at its time of release. However, the actor has remained fond of the film – and said she believes elements of post-#MeToo protectiveness have gone too far.
“I think it’s too much,” she told The Times. “You look at movies such as Pretty Baby, you look at Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet or you look at any coming of age movie that Louis Malle did, like Au Revoir les Enfants or Lacombe, Lucien or whatever. There was always a sexual element to them.
“Maybe the movies I did wouldn’t be made now because of such censorship, and that’s a tremendous loss. Pretty Baby is one of the most beautiful movies I’ve ever been in and I will defend it forever.”
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