Brooke Shields Reveals Why She's "Glad" She Never Had Kids With Andre Agassi

Brooke Shields's memoir, Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old: Thoughts on Aging as a Woman, is proving to be quite the tell-all. In the book, which released today, the model-actress-businesswoman opens up about deeply private, vulnerable, and emotional moments over the course of her life. Shocking anecdotes include the time a doctor performed a vaginal rejuvenation surgery on Shields without her consent, and when she had a "violent and excruciatingly painful" miscarriage. She also gets candid about her tumultuous marriage to Andre Agassi.

Agassi, the former Blue Lagoon star and tennis champion, started dating in 1993 after meeting at a tennis match. Three years later, Agassi proposed and they tied the knot the following year. However, their marriage ran its course in 1999, when they got divorced. And, as explained in a passage of Shields's book, their split was a bit messy.

"I’m glad I never got pregnant with my first husband because it would have been a disaster," the multi-hyphenate wrote. "When we got divorced he made that very clear. 'Be thankful we didn’t have children,' he said, 'because I would not have made this easy for you.'"

She continued, writing, "Well, thank you for that tidbit, I thought. You just made this particular transition much easier!"

Even before their eventual split, Shields explains Agassi would sometimes make comments that contributed to her body image issues.

“I was very specifically told I was not runway worthy, because I wasn’t skinny enough,” she wrote. “Being told you are ‘the face,’ you begin to believe that’s all you are—a face. From the neck up, I was Brooke Shields, but it was like my body existed in a different reality.”

She shared that when she relayed her worries to Agassi, he didn't always respond the way she hoped.

“When I would profess my insecurities to my first husband, he would always say, ‘I wish you could see yourself the way I see you,’“ she wrote. “However when I said, ‘Will you still love me if I’m big and fat?’ (I meant once I got pregnant—an unfair question for anybody to ask another person I know!) I could never have expected his response.”

Shields wrote that he told her, “I love you too much to let you get big and fat," and added, “I definitely did not see that coming and must admit I started to spin a bit. But we all know how that relationship turned out,”

While Shields and Agassi were clearly not compatible, she did get her happy ending. The Calvin Klein model went on to marry television writer Chris Henchy in 2001. And, after seven rounds of fertility treatment, she welcomed her first child, a daughter named Rowan, in 2003. Three years later, she had a second daughter named Grier.

Read the original article on InStyle