The first TikTok was her idea. Brooke Shields was in her youngest daughter Greer’s dorm room at Wake Forest University on freshman admissions day. Greer and her sister Rowan, a senior in college, told their mom they wanted to film something. She pitched the idea that the actor would ask the kids if she had become an empty nester. When she replied, she ran out of the room, happy to be free. Shields hesitated. She had mixed feelings about leaving them. But after a little encouragement, she agreed. The TikTok has over 4 million views.
But what was the second viral TikTok about? It’s all hers. A few days after being dumped, she was sitting alone on her porch, overwhelmed by loneliness. “It’s overwhelming for me, the end result of this — it’s definitely a rite of passage,” Shields told Askew. So she pulled out her phone and started making videos. She admitted she cried when they said goodbye and again while driving home. Now what? She found it all very difficult.
“I was totally into it,” Shields said with a laugh a few weeks later. But then she got serious: “I was being honest about that heartbreaking feeling when you see them shrink in the rearview mirror. It breaks your heart.”
This touches my heart. The video has been viewed by nearly 2 million people on TikTok. It has also been viewed by 2 million people on Instagram. Thousands of people shared their stories in the comments section. “Oh Brooke, this is so hard. It’s the end of an era and now you have to start a new chapter. But first you have to cry. It was too much. I lay on the couch for three weeks and couldn’t talk to anyone,” Debra Messing writes.
While there are plenty of mom influencers, Shields is pioneering new territory in empty-nest TikTok. It’s a complicated area. After decades of intense, highly committed parenting, your role as the primary caregiver suddenly ends. “I tell you when to go to bed, when to wake up, what to wear and what not to wear, what to eat and when to eat it. You have complete control,” Shields said. “Suddenly, here they are as mature young women. It’s beautiful to watch them, but at the same time, it’s really sad. It’s not just a matter of needing them… You love them and adore them. And then you feel happy when you see them having fun.
Then, as Shields realized, she got exactly what she wanted. After several weeks of crying on the porch, Shields posted another video of herself wearing denim shorts, and excitedly announcing that she was home alone. Then she laid on the couch watching TV with her dog Toosie. In addition to her uninterrupted TV time, Shields also indulges in the following: going to bed at 10 p.m. and getting up whenever she wants; going on dates with her husband for as long as she wants; dates; time to work on your own projects! “There’s something special about making your time your own again. I don’t have to know what plans they have so I can spend my day around them. Once you have kids, your whole life is with these people. Schedules are tied together and you decide the schedule, play dates, homework, manners, etc.,” she said.
That doesn’t mean the role of “mom” is gone. It’s not — now, it’s gotten to the stage where everyone involved is an adult. “It’s like learning a whole new language with a whole new set of rules,” she said.
Recently, Shields, Greer and Rowan have found common ground. The two girls checked out her closet before she headed to Wake Forest. She didn’t want designer stuff (though Shields still can’t find her Hermès slippers), but her old T-shirts: She bought a Harley-Davidson baby T-shirt, and one with a Keith Haring sketch on it. Greer became national news when she borrowed the wedding dress that Shields wore at her wedding to Andre Agassi during her graduation ceremony.
A few years ago, a girl approached Shields at Starbucks. Could they show her a picture? Shields did so thinking maybe someone was dressing up as her for Halloween, or maybe they had similar eyebrows. (She got plenty of eyebrow-raising photos.) Instead, they showed her a car with a sign on its windshield: FOR SALE. It used to belong to Brooke Shields.
At first she laughed—as if there was anything special about selling used cars. But when she went to get her coffee, she discovered it had been returned. Could she still see it?
It’s the same make and model – Mercedes 380SEC. But it had a bumper sticker that said, “I love Gstaad.” In the eighties, she moved to a Swiss mountain town. She admits now that “it was probably a very bad move” because she bought the sticker and stuck it on the back of her Mercedes. The salesman was right – it was her car. She took their phone numbers and bought the car back.
The “I Love Gstaad” car now belongs to the North Carolina girls. She shared it at school, getting coffee with friends, or doing whatever college students do between classes. The concept calmed Shields: “I had this image in my mind of these two young women getting into my old high school car and starting their lives together. It was so heartbreaking, but it was also fulfilling and sweet.”
