Brooke Shields was constantly branded 'fat' by mother

Los Angeles: Actress Brooke Shields, who is known for her beauty and a career that has spanned decades after she shot to fame as a child model when she was 12, says she was constantly called fat by her mother and that lowered her confidence.

Shields, 53, told digital magazine, PorterEdit: "My mother would get drunk and say, 'Why don't you move your fat a**?' So, I've always believed I had a fat a**."

"I modelled swimwear when I was 15, and even then, I didn't think I had a swimsuit body," she added, reports dailymail.co.uk.

"I was a cover girl, not a supermodel. I was neck-up - the face, the eyebrows - and I was always described as athletic, not rail-thin, not a runway model... Those messages, they seep into your consciousness."

Subsequently, Shields embarked on an ill-fated marriage to tennis ace Andre Agassi, whom she divorced in 1999 after just two years, to escape the clutches of her overbearing parent, who also served as her manager.

"I needed Andre to separate from my mother. I'd spent my life, 24/7, being so worried that my mother was going to die, and my whole world was wrapped around keeping her alive," she said.

"But that probably saved me and kept me on the straight and narrow. I needed to get past that, so that I could start at square one and be a less encumbered version of myself. But I still had so much growing up to do," she added.

She soon started to feel better about herself after embarking on a romance with screenwriter Chris Henchy, with whom she celebrated 17 years of marriage in April.

"I would walk backwards out of rooms, and he'd say, 'No, I want to grab onto you'. He really celebrated my womanliness and my body. And I needed a man to celebrate me," said Shields.

While Brooke endured such issues, she feels proud to say that her daughters Rowan, 15, and Grier, 12, are both so much more "mature" and "confident" than she was when she was their age.