Brooke Shields claims ex Andre Agassi used backhanded compliment to body-shame her: I started to spin a bit

Brooke Shields is getting real about the toll body image issues have taken on her over the years.In her new memoir, “Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old,” the “Mother of the Bride” star, 59, claimed her ex-husband Andre Agassi left her spinning “a bit” after giving her a backhanded compliment about her weight.“I was very specifically told I was not runway worthy, because I wasn’t skinny enough,” Shields wrote in chapter 6 of the book, reflecting on messages she received about her looks throughout her career.“Being told you are ‘the face,’ you begin to believe that’s all you are — a face,” she added.“From the neck up, I was Brooke Shields, but it was like my body existed in a different reality.”During her brief marriage to Agassi, the “Pretty Baby” star shared her body image struggles with the tennis pro.

However, according to Shields, the eight-time tennis grand slam champ did not provide her with the assurance she was seeking.“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 recalled.“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 the athlete told her, “‘I love you too much to let you get big and fat!’”“I definitely did not see that coming and must admit I started to spin a bit,” she confessed.“But we all know how that relationship turned out.”The couple married in 1997 before divorcing in 1999.Shields — who shares daughters Rowan, 21, and Grier, 18, with husband Chris Henchy — didn’t have any children with Agassi during their short-lived union.Today, she is “glad” about that fact, owing to a comment she alleged Agassi made during their split.“‘Be thankful we didn’t have children,’ he said, ‘because I would not ...