Brooke Shields Says Graduating from Princeton Led to Surprising Backlash: 'We Wanted You Kind of Dumb'
Brooke Shields Says Graduating from Princeton Led to Surprising Backlash: 'We Wanted You Kind of Dumb'
Virginia ChamleeWed, May 13, 2026 at 9:14 PM UTC
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Brooke Shields
Credit: John Nacion/Variety/Getty; on Galella Collection/Getty
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Brooke Shields is recalling how she thought graduating from Princeton would make Hollywood see her as a “smart actress”
But in a new podcast, Shields recalled the media reaction being, “Oh, no, no, no. We wanted you kind of dumb”
The actress said reporters disliked that she was no longer “malleable” when it came to interviews
Brooke Shields is opening up about the unexpected backlash she says she faced after graduating from Princeton University.
During the Tuesday, May 12 episode of the Dinner’s on Me podcast hosted by Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Shields, 60, reflected on how the entertainment industry and media reacted when she returned to Hollywood following college at the elite school.
The actress and model, who became one of the most recognizable young stars of the 1980s through films like The Blue Lagoon and Pretty Baby, graduated from Princeton in 1987 with a degree in French literature.
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Brooke Shields attends the Princeton University Class of 1987 Graduation Ceremony on June 9, 1987 at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey.
Credit: Ron Galella Collection/Getty
Looking back, Shields said she believed earning an Ivy League education would strengthen her standing in Hollywood.
“I was under the impression that I was going to come out of college a smart actress and that Hollywood was going to be like, ‘Oh, great, and now she’s intelligent’, ” Shields said on the podcast. "This is a — I mean a trifecta. You know what I mean? We’ve got looks, fame, intelligence, hopefully talent.”
Instead, Shields said the response from the press was surprisingly negative.
“And they were like, ‘Oh, no, no, no. We wanted you kind of dumb,’ ” she recalled. “Like the press were, like, mad. It was weird.”
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According to Shields, the reaction stemmed in part from the fact that she no longer approached interviews and media scrutiny as naively as she had as a younger actress.
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The actress explained that becoming more educated and confident changed the dynamic between she and reporters.
“They couldn’t manipulate me in the same way,” Shields said.
She continued: “So instead of struggling through answering their questions like I used to, I would say, ‘I don’t think that that’s what we’re here to talk about.' ... And they would be like, ‘Oh, she’s not malleable anymore.’ 'Oh, we don’t like her that way.' "
Shields has, in her adult years, opened up about being sexualized at an early age as a model and actress, saying in the two-part 2023 Hulu documentary Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, "I'm amazed that I survived any of it."
Her decision to attend Princeton at the peak of her fame was seen as an unconventional move for a Hollywood star at the time, but Shields ultimately graduated from the university after balancing her studies with continued acting jobs.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
