Brooke Shields Recalls Barbara Walters Asking for Her Measurements at 15

Brooke Shields is still unpacking one of the most uncomfortable moments of her early fame: that time Barbara Walters asked a 15-year-old her body measurements on national TV. She brought it up again this week, and honestly, hearing it in her words still lands like a gut punch.

The new reflection (and the old wound)

On the Tuesday, May 12 episode of Jesse Tyler Ferguson's 'Dinner's On Me' podcast, Shields, now 60, circled back to her infamous 1981 sit-down with Walters, who died in 2022 at 93. Walters didn't just ask the usual career stuff. She pushed Shields on her measurements, her sexual history, and more—interrogation-level questions aimed at a teenager.

'It’s also insane that Barbara Walters asked me my measurements.'

Shields says the moment was deeply awkward. Walters had her stand up and essentially compare bodies with her. Shields complied—because that was the power dynamic then—but she felt the discomfort all over her. Looking back, she says she took everything personally at that age; now, she’s better at letting things roll off. And if someone tried that question today? She’d come back with a quip instead of swallowing it.

Context matters: the era and the room

Shields is blunt about the landscape at the time: TV was a boys’ club, and young actresses were fair game. Her mom was in the room during the interview and didn’t flag the question as off-limits; the mentality was basically: 'As long as they’re talking about you, it doesn’t matter what they say.' That was the playbook, and, unfortunately, it was common.

Why Walters went there in the first place

The grilling came right after Shields’ splashy 1980 Calvin Klein campaign with the line: 'You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.' It sparked outrage—because, yes, a teen delivering that line reads as suggestive—and some stations banned the ad; Canada wouldn’t air it at all. Shields has said she was blindsided by the reaction. As a kid, she didn’t read it as sexual; she thought of it like something she’d say about her sister: 'Nobody can come between me and my sister.' What really shook her was getting yelled at by paparazzi and strangers—'How could you?'—as if she had masterminded the whole thing. She hadn’t. She was a kid.

She’s called this out before

This isn’t a one-off. In 2021 on Dax Shepard’s 'Armchair Expert,' Shields said the kinds of questions she got from Walters and other journalists back then were 'practically criminal.' In 2022 on 'The Drew Barrymore Show,' she said she felt 'taken advantage of' during that Walters interview. The throughline is pretty clear: a teenage star put in situations no teenager should be asked to navigate, with adults justifying it as business as usual.

The quick timeline

• 1980: Calvin Klein TV spot debuts with the 'Nothing' tagline; controversy erupts; some stations ban it and Canada declines to air it.
• 1981: At 15, Shields sits for multiple high-profile interviews, including the Walters one with questions about her measurements and sex life; she’s asked to stand and compare bodies.
• 2021 (Oct.): Shields tells Vogue she was shocked by the ad backlash and bans, saying she didn’t see the spot as sexual at the time.
• 2021: On 'Armchair Expert,' she calls the media questions from that era 'practically criminal.'
• 2022: On 'The Drew Barrymore Show,' she says she felt 'taken advantage of' by Walters.
• 2022: Barbara Walters dies at 93.
• Tuesday, May 12 (recent episode): On 'Dinner’s On Me,' Shields revisits the interview and calls the measurements question 'insane.'

One last footnote

If you want a tangible relic from that moment in pop culture, a pair of Shields’ iconic 1980 Calvin Klein jeans sold at auction for $68,750. The discourse around the ad hasn’t aged well. The denim clearly did.