Brooke Shields recalls the insulting question asked by 2 male doctors after her Grand Mal seizure

Brooke Shields can’t help comparing how differently men and women are treated by doctors.

On Monday, January 13, the model-actress appeared Good morning America and opened up about why she decided to touch on women’s experience in the healthcare system in her new book, Brooke Shields is not allowed to grow old.

“Women go through things. We have to be able to say, ‘This isn’t fair.’ We have to be able to defend ourselves,” she said.

“I had a seizure not too long ago and the two male doctors said, ‘Are you restricting yourself for dietary reasons?’ And I thought, ‘No. I’m a 59-year-old woman, bloated. Give me some potato chips!’ You wouldn’t say that to a man.”

“And that’s not what the book is, it doesn’t reduce it to male, female — we love the men in our lives,” she continued. “But it’s time to explore this without shouting, without being angry. I say to my girls…we don’t need to shout louder. We just need to be sure of what we believe and be heard, because we just screaming gets nowhere.”

Shields gets candid in her book about aging and claiming agency over her body. She even writes about the moment she discovered she was undergoing a medical procedure she did not consent to.

ABC News Correspondent Rebecca Jarvis asked on the show if anything scares Shields at this point in her life.

“No,” Shields replied. “I would be very dishonest if I didn’t come to share my truth.”

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Shields first opened up about her health scare in her Glamour Women of the year 2023 cover story. She said the attack occurred before a performance of her one-woman show, Formerly owned by Brooke Shields, at New York City Cafe Carlylea famous performing arts venue and restaurant.

“I was getting ready for the show and I was drinking so much water and I didn’t know I was low sodium,” she recalled. “I was waiting for an Uber. I get down to the bottom of the steps and I’m obviously starting to look weird and (the people I was with) said, ‘Are you okay?’ “

Shields explained that she left her home the night of the seizure but kept being asked by her companions if she was “okay” and needed coffee. She said she “went” to a “corner” outside and felt uncomplicated before entering the nearby NYC restaurant L’Artusi.

“I go to the sommelier, who had just spent an hour looking at my progress… Everything starts to go black. Then my hands fall to my side and I go headfirst into the wall,” the actress said at the time.

That’s when the grand mal seizure started, describing it as “foaming at the mouth, completely blue, trying to swallow my tongue.”

“The next thing I remember is being loaded into an ambulance. I’m on oxygen. And Bradley f—ing Cooper is sitting next to me holding my hand,” she shared.

Ultimately, Shields said, doctors determined that “low sodium” caused the seizure after she consumed “too much water.” “I drowned myself. And if you don’t have enough sodium in your blood or urine or your body, you can have a seizure.”

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