Brooke Shields felt she was “taken advantage of” as a young teenager being grilled by Barbara Walters.
Recalling “the fiasco” on Tuesday’s episode of “The Drew Barrymore Show,” the world-famous actress and model said she felt the legendary broadcaster was after a “negative soundbite” during their controversial sit-down, which took place in 1981 on the heels of Shields’ famous Calvin Klein jeans campaign.
“She asked me what my measurements were and asked me to stand up,” Shields, who was 15 at the time, told Barrymore. “And I stand up, and she was like comparing herself to this little girl. And I thought, ‘This isn’t right. I don’t understand what this is.'”
“But I just behaved and just smiled,” she said, acknowledging that she “felt so taken advantage of in so many ways.”
In fact, Shields once referred to her interview with Walters as “practically criminal” and “not journalism.”
“But then you learn to say no,” she explained, bringing up another unsettling sit-down she did when she was around “10 or something.”
“This woman asked the same question repeatedly,” the model said, clarifying that the interviewer was not Walters.
Shields, 57, “finally” told the unnamed interviewer, “I don’t think you wanna know my answer because you keep asking me the same question, and this is my answer but I can’t change it because it’s my truth.”
Barrymore, 47, shared her own unpleasant Walters story but prefaced it by saying that she loves, admires and looks up to the “View” creator.
“I never thought of Barbara Walters in a negative light, nor do I,” the actress insisted, a sentiment with which Shields “absolutely” agreed.
Still, Barrymore did not appreciate when the television personality, 93, would ask what she felt were invasive questions.
“She was like, ‘Talk to me about the drugs and alcohol, talk to me about your mother, talk to me about bisexuality, talk to me about everything,'” she claimed.
“And I kept saying, ‘You know, Barbara, I’m really doing well,’ and it was five, six, seven times over.”
Reps for Walters did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment
