Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of gender discrimination and illness.

Shields suffered a grand mal seizure in a neighborhood bistro just days before her one-woman show was to open. She does not remember much about the seizure but does recall waking up in an ambulance with her neighbor—friend and famous actor Bradley Cooper—accompanying her. He was nearby when the medical emergency occurred and supported Shields until her husband arrived at the hospital. The experience was not only frightening but also frustrating because of the way a male physician treated Shields, asking her if she was restricting her salt intake to lose weight and thus implying that she may have caused her seizure. Her sodium levels had simply dropped because of the heat she endured while preparing for the show. 

This event was the second health scare that Shields experienced within a few years. She broke her femur in 2021, while working out, and spent a month hospitalized with no visitors because of the COVID-19 pandemic. She also developed a dangerous staph infection while in the hospital, which required further treatment. This experience forced her to confront her mortality, an awareness that her motherhood heightened. She could not be parented while hospitalized because she still had to parent her daughters.