Brooke Shields reveals how she dealt with mum's alcohol abuse: 'It was my safety net'

Brooke Shields has revealed how acting helped her cope as a teenager while her mother battled alcoholism.

The actress, now 57, described her Hollywood career as an escape as her mum Teri's behaviour became increasingly erratic and emotionally abusive.

Speaking to The Sunday Times magazine, the star said: "Making movies was always my safety net."

In her 2014 memoir There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me she revealed that her mother had struggled with her drinking all her life but had refused to give up alcohol.

It included a letter written by a 10-year-old Brooke, which read: "Mommy, I beg of you please stay without drinking."

The star recalled to the Times: "I had to contend with so much at such an early age, and there was resilience, but also I put on blinders as a defence mechanism.

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"But now I can look at that little girl and think, ‘She did it, she pulled through.’"

Her mother, who passed away in 2012, was Brooke's manager as she soared to fame from the age of 11.

Teri has been criticised for allowing her young daughter to play a child prostitute in her breakthrough role in the 1978 film Pretty Baby, and also appear nude aged 15 in the 1980 film The Blue Lagoon.

Brooke, now a mother of two teen daughters, acknowledged that while she should have "absolutely" been protected by her parent as a child, she doesn't feel anger.

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The star explained: "Everyone always wanted me to be angry with her, but anger was just too sad for me to take when I looked at how insecure she was."

She has recently made the documentary Pretty Baby, in which she revealed for the first time that she was raped in her early 20s shortly after graduating from university.

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