Brooke Shields Prioritizes Happiness Over Youth in Her New Chapter

“I am tired of not feeling skinny enough. It’s boring and it’s a waste of my time.”

She was just 15 years old when she modeled for Calvin Klein, but Brooke Shields, now 58, isn’t fixated on eternal youth. After a long career in both modeling and acting, she’s ready to embrace her “F-ck It Era,” celebrating this new mindset with one of Glamour’s Woman of the Year Awards. Shields spoke to the publication about how she’s no longer concerned about looking youthful all the time and has chosen to focus her energy on feeling great and living her life to the fullest.

“I love food, and I love alcohol, and I love life, and I want to be healthy for my heart,” she told Glamour. “I don’t like going to the gym. And I am tired of not feeling skinny enough. It’s boring and it’s a waste of my time.”

Shields added that it took her a long time to be able to approach life through this new lens and she shared that she wishes that she’d been able to stop caring a long time ago, calling the whole thing “a process.”

“I don’t think I could have gotten here earlier,” she said. “You really have to tread through it. I wish I could say it was a lot earlier than recently.”

The star noted that she had felt similarly before, pointing out that after she had her two daughters, Rowan and Grier, she was in a similar headspace and focused more on being healthy than on what she looked like.

“My body had a purpose that nobody [could take away],” she said.

Now, she says that she is extremely happy to be able to share the new outlook with her daughters and women everywhere.

“I’m at this place which I don’t think I dreamt I’d ever get to. I’m changing the narrative that I’ve been playing over in my head: not good enough, too famous, not this, not this, not this. I am so proud,” she said. “I’m proud of my girls: two vibrant women who are going to be fine, who are unique and smart and funny and different. I feel lucky, and I do feel proud because I know I had something to do with it.”

Nobody is perfect, however, and even Shields admits to moments of insecurity. She is quick to shift the negativity, however, saying that all the time spent critiquing herself can be used in more productive ways.

“I wish stuff was a little higher, and I have a bit of a belly that I never had,” she added. “I could lose it if I really, really wanted to try, but I would rather spend that time having lunch, reading a book, walking, buying a piece of jewelry, going to my daughter’s games.”

In another moment of vulnerability, Shields said that she was going too far with procedures and that she was losing herself in the hunt for eternal youth. While she’s not against certain treatments, she’s learned from her mistakes and won’t go overboard ever again. Whatever she does, though, she says she’ll always make sure that she manages to continue looking like herself.

“I think it’s easy to go down the slope of overdoing it. I’m scared of not looking like myself; the times that I’ve had Botox, I end up with this Spock eye and I’m like, ‘I don’t look like myself,'” she shared. “But I’ll get [the laser peel] Fraxels, and peels, and whatever the newest thing is, and I’ll try it. I just don’t want to not look like myself.”