ATP legend Andre Agassi’s ex-wife Brooke Shields is now making headlines with her candid revelations in her recent documentary ‘Pretty Baby’. Focusing on several life-altering incidents Shields had off-camera, the documentary also speaks loud on issues that created quite a ruckus in the public eye. One such incident was Brooke’s riff with one of Hollywood’s highest-paid and most popular actors- Tom Cruise himself.
Tom Cruise was in the headlines back then for making certain problematic comments on Brooke Shields and her post-partum depression narrative. While Brooke was advocating these taboo-ed issues, Cruise shunned her statements claiming that they were unscientific. Years later, when WTA legend Serena Williams faced similar horrors of post-natal depression, women across the world could relate her story to that of Shields’.
These comments spurred from Brooke Shields’ bold attempt to put down her experiences in her book- ‘Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression’. Cruise claimed that Brooke was someone he cared about, but now she has put her career at stake with these statements. However, it was the other way around as soon after that interview, Cruise received backlash from medical professionals, the public, and Shields alike.
“When someone says (drugs) has helped them or it is to cope- it didn’t cure anything. There is no science. There is nothing that can cure them whatsoever,” said Cruise at the time. “There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance,” Cruise said while talking to Matt Lauer. “The thing that I’m saying about Brooke is that there’s misinformation. She doesn’t understand the history of psychiatry…She doesn’t know what these drugs are, and for her to promote it is irresponsible.”
via Imago
Replying to his comments, Shields published her side of the debate in an op-ed piece for the New York Times, and she wrote, “Tom should stick to saving the world from aliens and let women who are experiencing postpartum depression decide what treatment options are best for them.”
She further stated, “I’m going to take a wild guess and say that Mr. Cruise has never suffered from postpartum depression.”
“It was so ridiculous to me,” Shields reveals now talking about this episode in her documentary. “It’s not about the moral thing, or the right thing, or the good thing. It’s about who has more power.”
After the birth of her daughter Rowan, Shields sat for a candid interview with Oprah Winfrey wherein she made public statements about taking anti-depressants and consulting a psychiatrist to battle post-natal depression. “I decided to talk about the experience publicly because I was made to feel that somehow the fault was with me and that it wasn’t that common, because nobody was talking about it,” Brooke now reveals.
Serena suffered a similar fate after giving birth to her daughter in 2017
Serena Williams, who battled these confusing emotions herself after the birth of little Olympia back in 2017, termed the condition as “post-partum emotions” and not “post-partum depression”.
via Getty
On Instagram, she posted a picture with her daughter and wrote a long caption about these conflicts that she was battling every day.“Last week was not easy for me,” she said. “Not only was I accepting some tough personal stuff, but I just was in a funk…Mostly, I felt like I was not a good mom.”
“It’s totally normal to feel like I’m not doing enough for my baby,” says Serena.
However, almost a year later, Cruise publicly apologized to Shields, after being told by doctors that he was actually “misinformed” on the topic.
