Brooke Shields recalled a frightening episode she experienced during the 1978 Cannes Film Festival while promoting the controversial film Pretty Baby. The actress was only 12 years old at the time and said the attention surrounding her turned into a real “frenzy“.
During an appearance on The Bossticks podcast, Shields said crowds gathered to see her and that some people even tried to cut her hair. According to the actress, fans literally wanted “a piece” of her, making the situation chaotic and frightening.
Shields said that after the experience, she and her mother considered leaving films behind. “My mother and I were like, ‘No, never again. No more movies for us. Go back to modeling,'” the actress said during the conversation.
The episode took place during the promotion of Pretty Baby, a drama directed by Louis Malle about the exploitation of a young girl in New Orleans in the early 20th century. The feature film sparked major controversy and was banned in several countries due to its content involving an underage actress.
In her memoir There Was a Little Girl, published in 2014, Shields revealed more details about what happened. According to her, the crowd was so large and disorganized that she was nearly trampled.
Amid the turmoil, a man grabbed a lock of her hair and was preparing to cut it with scissors, but Bob Karsian, a friend of her mother’s, managed to push him away before he could carry out the act.
The actress said the episode left a deep mark on her. Although she can now look back on the story with some humor, she wrote that it took her around 20 years to even consider returning to the Cannes Film Festival.
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