Nearly 20 years after receiving criticism from Tom Cruise for her “irresponsible” approach to treating postpartum depression, Brooke Shields is opening up about the apology she “eventually” received from the Golden Globe-winning actor.
In her new memoir, “Brooke Shields is Not Allowed To Get Old: Thoughts on Aging as a Woman,” the Golden Globe nominee detailed Cruise’s apology after his explosive interview with former “Today” show host Matt Lauer in 2005, saying the “Top Gun” actor attacked her “because he could.”
During his interview, Cruise claimed Shields’ prescription for postpartum depression “didn’t cure anything.”
“There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance. The thing that I’m saying about Brooke is that there’s misinformation,” Cruise told Lauer at the time. “She doesn’t understand the history of psychiatry.”
In response, Shields wrote an op-ed for The New York Times, calling Cruise’s comments a “disservice to mothers everywhere.”
“I couldn’t bear the sound of [daughter] Rowan crying, and I dreaded the moments my husband would bring her to me,” Shields wrote at the time. “I wanted her to disappear. I wanted to disappear. At my lowest points, I thought of swallowing a bottle of pills or jumping out the window of my apartment.”
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“I couldn’t believe it when my doctor told me that I was suffering from postpartum depression and gave me a prescription for the antidepressant Paxil. I wasn’t thrilled to be taking drugs. In fact, I prematurely stopped taking them and had a relapse that almost led me to drive my car into a wall with Rowan in the backseat. But the drugs, along with weekly therapy sessions, are what saved me – and my family.”
Shields said Cruise’s comments showed a clear “lack of understanding” about postpartum depression.
“Comments like those made by Tom Cruise are a disservice to mothers everywhere,” she added. “To suggest that I was wrong to take drugs to deal with my depression, and that instead I should have taken vitamins and exercised shows an utter lack of understanding about postpartum depression and childbirth in general. If any good can come of Mr. Cruise’s ridiculous rant, let’s hope that it gives much-needed attention to a serious disease.”
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In her book, Shields admitted that, had the comments been made before she became a mother, she “would’ve stayed quiet.”
“I would have ignored his ridiculous rant,” she wrote, per Entertainment Weekly. “I might have been content to sit back while this very famous man hijacked my experience to advance his own (deluded) agenda. I would have been satisfied that his behavior would speak for itself.”
But Shields insisted on fighting back for herself and “women who were suffering from irrational and dangerous comments from an unschooled actor who was speaking way out of his depth.”
“Eventually, Tom Cruise apologized to me,” she wrote. “Not publicly, which would have been the right thing to do, but he came to my house and said he was sorry, and that he felt cornered by Matt Lauer and that he attacked me basically because he could. It wasn’t the world’s best apology, but it’s what he was capable of, and I accepted it.”
A representative for Cruise did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
