Brooke Shields says Tom Cruise 'eventually apologized' for his 'ridiculous rant' about postpartum depression

It's been nearly two decades since Tom Cruise publicly criticized Brooke Shields for using antidepressants to treat her postpartum depression — but she certainly hasn't forgotten how it felt to stand her ground.

In her new memoir, Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old: Thoughts on Aging as a Woman, the Mother of the Bride star reflects on the 2005 feud, which began when the acclaimed actor and famous scientologist delivered an unhinged rant to Today's Matt Lauer about his rejection of psychiatry, deeming Shields "irresponsible" for taking antidepressants after the birth of her first child.

"There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance. The thing that I’m saying about Brooke is that there’s misinformation,” Cruise insisted at the time. “She doesn’t understand the history of psychiatry.”

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Reflecting on it now, Shields quips that Cruise's stance was "an interesting opinion coming from someone without ovaries."

The actress went on to say that while the attack left her "gobsmacked," shock was not enough to keep her silent.

“Had Tom taken a public swing at me before I became a mother, I probably would have stayed quiet," Shields admits. "I would have ignored his ridiculous rant. I might have been content to sit back while this very famous man hijacked my experience to advance his own (deluded) agenda. I would have been satisfied that his behavior would speak for itself."

But, she continues, Cruise's rant came a month after her 40th birthday, as Shields was finally beginning to embrace self-confidence. "I was emboldened by life experience," she writes. "So instead of letting myself turn into a punching bag, I swung back."

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Shields responded at the time with an op-ed in the New York Times titled War of Words — a play on the fact that Cruise appeared on Today to promote the Steven Spielberg-directed film, War of Worlds.

“Comments like those made by Tom Cruise are a disservice to mothers everywhere,” Shields wrote in her piece. “To suggest that I was wrong to take drugs to deal with my depression, and that instead I should have taken vitamins and exercised shows an utter lack of understanding about postpartum depression and childbirth in general. If any good can come of Mr. Cruise’s ridiculous rant, let’s hope that it gives much-needed attention to a serious disease.”

Related: Brooke Shields accepted Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' wedding invite on the condition that she wasn't the 'something old'

In her memoir, Shields shares that prior to penning the op-ed, her then-publicist advised her not to "dignify" Cruise's comments with a response. But that only infuriated her further.

"I wasn't dignifying anything. I was sticking up for myself and for women who were suffering from irrational and dangerous comments from an unschooled actor who was speaking way out of his depth," writes Shields, who added that she later fired that publicist.

When Cruise apologized a year later, Shields initially described the apology as “heartfelt.” But reflecting on it now, she admits that she wasn't all that impressed by his words of regret.

"Eventually, Tom Cruise apologized to me. Not publicly, which would have been the right thing to do, but he came to my house and said he was sorry, and that he felt cornered by Matt Lauer and that he attacked me basically because he could," Shields recalls. "It wasn’t the world’s best apology, but it’s what he was capable of, and I accepted it."

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She added that Cruise's apology was never the prize, anyway. Much more meaningful was the impact that the feud had on the conversations surrounding postpartum depression — and the fact that she was able to stand up for herself in the first place.

"Tom didn't have a leg to stand on and his ignorance on the issue inspired women to get on their soapboxes and scream for their rights and their bodies," she writes. "Having a famous movie star attacking my journey brought attention to it… I wasn't laughed at or made to feel guilty, I was applauded. And these external outcomes, while meaningful, were secondary to the realization that I am my own best spokesperson."

Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old: Thoughts on Aging as a Woman is available in stores now.

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