Last Sunday, Demi Moore accepted her first major acting award at the Golden Globes. Brooke Shields watched from home: “My kids will be like, ‘Oh, it’s Golden Globe night. Get the bottle of wine for mom! Get the tequila!’” Shields laughed. “It’s so interesting, these award shows, isn’t it? They can be torture if you sit there and think: Why am I not valid enough to get this, do that, whatever?“

I asked, “Did you feel that?”

“I’ve felt it my whole life.”

It may be surprising to hear that a veteran actress like Shields craves acceptance. It turns out she is completely human. “I listened to Demi: ‘We weren’t the ones who ever got awards.’ No, I got the People’s Choice Awards!

“So you get the People’s Choice Award, but you wanted the Emmy, the Oscar?”

“You just wanted to be part of the group, the cool kids,” Shields said. “That’s where the insecure little girl comes out.”

At this point in her six-decade career, the comedian has earned the right to laugh at herself.

Shields, currently 59, said she feels 38. “I definitely feel a youthfulness that I didn’t feel in my younger years,” she said.

She began modeling while wearing diapers. Later she attracted everyone’s attention with jeans from Calvin Klein. Shields was expected to sell products and say her lines while looking stunning at the same time. She delivered.

But as she approaches 60, she finds a cultural script that she firmly rejects.

“By the time you’re 50, they’ve just completely written you off,” she said. “You’re out in the pasture. Society says, ‘Oh, if you’re not the hot twenty-something at the bar, you’re an old lady.’ There’s this whole demo in the middle that just gets overlooked.

It is for these overlooked women that Shields has written her fourth book: “Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old” (out Tuesday from Flatiron). “If you’re someone who’s known for looking a certain way because you get older, you become a disappointment in some ways,” she said. “I witnessed people being personally offended because I dared to be 60!”

“And what do you tell them?”

“I just kind of feel sorry for them,” Shields said. “And I’m part of the problem because I was that symbol, you know, maybe unknowingly. But I didn’t plan to do that.”

Nearly 44 years after being named the Face of a Decade, Shields hopes to be a voice for her generation – empowering women by sharing her personal and sometimes vulnerable experiences.

In her book, she reveals that a doctor performed an operation on her that she did not consent to. “My gynecologist asked me if I felt any discomfort and I said yes.”

In the late 2000s, Shields went to a surgeon to relieve some labia discomfort. But after the operation, she found out that he had performed an additional procedure: unwanted vaginal rejuvenation. “He literally looked at me and said, ‘I got you a little tight,'” Shields said. “And I thought, ‘What?’ And he was kind of bragging about how he’d thrown in a little bonus for me and I was so shocked I just didn’t know what to do.

“What did you say?”

“I didn’t say it, I didn’t say anything because it sounded like he wanted it Thanks to “I didn’t say anything back then, and this is the first time I said anything.”

This so-called bonus operation had lasting side effects. The actress and model say sex can be painful.

“That was, you know, a long time ago. We didn’t know what to fight or complain about. I finally had a life and kids and thought, ‘Dear God, I don’t want this kind of attention.’ ‘” she said.

Why is she speaking out now? “Because I have daughters. And there’s no shame in that. And the more we have these conversations with them, conversations that I’ve never had, the more progress I think we’ll make as women.”

Shields wants to make progress in other ways, too. In May, she was elected president of the Actors’ Equity Association, the union that represents 51,000 actors and stage managers across the country. As a five-time Broadway star, she felt a responsibility to give back to a community that welcomed her.

She has already taken her fight for more money and a change in tax policy to Washington. “It was a learning curve,” she said. “It’s a trial by fire. I’ve never been on the Hill and met with congressmen and senators. But you know, producers have to take care of the people who bleed for them every day.”

Shields is not only a union leader, but also a CEO. She founded the beauty brand Commence after hearing that older women were worried about their hair. “They felt overlooked, and that’s just the truth,” she said. “They are not marketed.”

When asked what was the hardest part about being CEO, Shields replied: “Raising money. Maintain the flow of money because you have to put it back into the company immediately. And you know, nobody’s getting paid yet. At least not me!” she laughed.

Don’t ask Brooke Shields if she’s ready to slow down. Age has brought wisdom, and it is just beginning.

“I’m going to be, you know, 60 years old,” she said. “I’m still here. I feel like I’m at the beginning of a new, really exciting phase. The more confident you become – isn’t that interesting – the more opportunities you get. And yet you couldn’t have done that.” I got this confidence without having to take all the time to get here.

READ AN EXCERPT: “Brooke Shields can’t get old”

WEB EXTRA: Watch an in-depth interview with Brooke Shields

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The story was produced by Michelle Kessel. Editor: George Pozderec.