Brooke Shields speaks out about being sexualized as a child after being forced to kiss actor aged 11

Brooke Shields has opened up about what it was like to be sexualized from a young age, having grown up as a child actor in Hollywood.

The 58-year-old, who was just 11 when she starred as a sex worker in Pretty Baby, was forced to passionately kiss her 27-year-old co-star Keith Carradine.

Shields joined forces with Meghan Markle and Katie Couric to chat about 'breaking barriers' on International Women's Day earlier this week, where she recalled the harrowing experiences.

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At the event, she said: "There was this sexualization of young women and I was at the center of it."

Fortunately, Shields was protected from predators thanks to her mother, but she acknowledges that many other young people in the industry have faced a different experience.

"I was promoting it, I was surrounded by a strong mom, had a community around me, I did not become the type of statistic that Hollywood created," she said, as per the Daily Mail.

"Hollywood is predicated on eating its young."

The actor, who even posed nude for Playboy at the tender age of just 10, has previously called out her mom, Teri Shields, for allowing her to do the film in the first place, branding it 'child pornography,' in her documentary which came out last year.

At the time, she criticized her mother, who died following an alcohol addiction in 2012, saying: "I don't know why she thought it was all right. I don't know."

Paramount Pictures

On set of the film Pretty Baby, Shields recalled having to kiss her co-star Carradine while appearing naked. She says she pulled a face, which showed her obvious repulsion, and got shouted at by the director - but her mother chose not to step in and say anything.

She said: "That was … that was hard for me, to not justify my mom to them, but when they asked me, I thought, 'Oh God, I have to admit this.' I mean, I could say, 'Oh, it was the time back then,' or 'Oh, it was art.' But I don't know why she thought it was all right. I don't know."

When the actor turned 16, she faced fresh horror when a so-called family friend attempted to sell nude photographs he took of her when she was just 10 years old. The family took the photographer to court but he won.

Last year, in an interview with Drew Barrymore, Shields spoke of how her mother would tell her before every audition: "No one's going to get you. I'm going to be there. I'm there first. You're mine. I'm not going to give you to somebody."