Brooke Shields reveals 'insane,' 'inappropriate' question Barbara Walters asked her when she was only 15

Joey NolfiThu, May 14, 2026 at 3:01 PM UTC

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Brooke Shields; Barbara Walters
Credit: Getty(3)Key Points -

Brooke Shields has opened up about an "insane" interview she had with Barbara Walters.

Shields said Walters asked her an "inappropriate" question when she was only 15.

She later observed Walters needing "validation" from the cohosts of The View.

Brooke Shields has opened up about an "insane" and "inappropriate" question the late Barbara Walters asked her when the model-actress was only 15 years old.

While promoting her You're Killing Me TV series on the latest episode of Jesse Tyler Ferguson's Dinner's on Me podcast (below), Shields, now 60, told Ferguson that it's "insane that Barbara Walters asked me my measurements" when she was a rising child star in the 1980s.

"Like, what the hell?" Shields asked, while Ferguson inquired about subsequent exchanges with Walters during Shields' numerous appearances on the TV journalist's hit talk show The View, throughout the '90s and 2000s before Walters' retirement from the show in 2014.

"Oh, no. Because that's not in her nature," Shields said when Ferguson asked if there was ever an acknowledgement, on Walters' part, that they had a complicated past over the awkward interview moment.

Barbara Walters and Brooke Shields in 1981
Credit: Joe McNally/Getty

Shields continued, attempting to rationalize Walters' question when she said, "I think, also, I took everything personally, and I kind of still do. I'm much better now at not letting it affect me so much. These women were [working] when women [didn't have] any power, and in a male world, they weren't thinking about me, at all."

The actress later explained that she felt Walters chased validation on The View.

"Barbara in particular did, she — and God rest her soul — her big thing, especially on The View, was, 'Brooke and I go way back.' All of a sudden, my presence had more currency in The View scenario than it ever did on the way," the star stated. "So, it was like, oh, I'm famous and still relevant somehow in her mind or whatever, because I'm on there for something, because I'm working or whatever. It was validating. It was so interesting to sit there going, oh, she's needing validation in front of these ladies."

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Shields said the cycle of women feeling like they need validation from others in the public eye "doesn't end, I don't care who you are."

"I don't know if Oprah [Winfrey] feels that way, maybe she's in a different world, or Diane [Sawyer], she's been through loss, I think that makes people a little more human," Shields said. "So it was really interesting to me. I've come from that, in your mind, the discomfort that I felt at age 15, and you see it on my face, standing up, being compared to this woman in measurements."

Shields said that "if someone asked me that now, I'd come back with some kind of quip," and also pointed out that her mother "didn't even register [Walters' question] as slightly inappropriate" at the time, either: "Because her thing was, as long as they're talking about you, it doesn't matter what they say."

In last year's Tell Me Everything documentary about Walters' life and career, Walters' friends and peers reflected on some of her more controversial moments, with broadcaster Cynthia McFadden telling Entertainment Weekly's sister publication PEOPLE at the time, "Some of her interviews haven’t aged well."

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Walters, who died in 2022 at age 93, underwent a slight career reexamination in later years, particularly for her handling of interview subjects like Monica Lewinsky, after Walters grilled the former White House intern about being labeled a "bimbo" and a "seductress," and inquired if she felt like she was doing something "bad for the country" during her highly publicized affair with President Bill Clinton.

Watch Shields discuss her interview with Walters in the video above.

on Entertainment Weekly

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