Brooke Shields Just Shared New Details Of Her Broken Femur Accident And Recovery (2024)

• Brooke Shields revealed that she broke her femur in a balance board accident in January.
• In a new interview, she opened up about what caused the injury and her recovery.
• The actress is learning how to walk again after multiple surgeries on her femur and healing from a serious infection.

Brooke Shields, 55, revealed in late February on Instagram that she was recovering after breaking her femur. The actress didn’t offer up many details at the time, but now, Brooke is opening up about her injury, the intense aftermath, and her recovery.

On May 24, she spoke with Deborah Roberts on Good Morning America, and shared a whole new perspective following her accident. "I think it's almost been the biggest blessing to date because I realized what a fighter I am," Brooke said.

The model recounted her accident and what it's taken to get back on her feet. Brooke was using a balance board in a New York City gym, when she fell off. "I turned back, which you never take your focus off, and I flew up in the air with such force, and I landed so heavy and so hard and with such musculature and such velocity and such height," she told Roberts in the interview. "I just started screaming. And I've never screamed like that. I mean, not even in childbirth."

Brooke broke her femur and was rushed to the hospital.

She told People in a previous interview that she landed so hard that she broke her right femur. "It felt like it was all in slow motion," she said. "And then I just started screaming… Sounds came out that I've never heard before."

An ambulance arrived, and Brooke said she was scared because she couldn’t move. "I was so afraid I was paralyzed," she recalled. "I felt how solid the impact was," she told Good Morning America. "I don't remember hearing anything. The only thing I could keep saying was that I could feel my toes because I just knew that I couldn't move, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't paralyzed."

The Blue Lagoon star originally had surgery to insert two metal rods, but needed a second surgery to add five more rods and a metal plate to anchor her leg in place after the fractured femur shifted. Brooke was unable to have visitors during her hospital stay due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Brooke developed a staph infection after she was released from the hospital.

Brooke was in the hospital for two and a half weeks, and she developed a serious staph infection after she went home. That landed her back in the hospital for emergency surgery on the spot where she had three blood transfusions.

Doctors worried at first that Brooke might have MRSA, a type of bacteria that’s resistant to antibiotics. "Thank God it wasn't," the Mr. Pickles actress said. "If it had been, my doctor said it would have been a race against time. That's how you can become septic. It seemed unthinkable."

"Once fear crept in, that's when I started to falter," Brooke shared. "I don't think I've ever been more afraid because I was helpless."

When Brooke went home a second time, she asked to do twice-a-day physical therapy workouts. But, she said, "For the first time in my entire life, I thought, 'I can't power through this.' I can't even stand on my leg or go up a step. I need to relearn how to even walk. The feeling of helplessness is shocking."

Brooke has been working hard to try to heal.

Now, she’s doing physical therapy to try to heal. "I realized with a certain calm that the rest is up to me now," the Jane The Virgin alum told People.

"I'm the only one that's going to be able to get through this," she said. "My career has actually been like that as well. One door gets slammed in my face, and I search for another. It's not unlike how I felt when I wrote about postpartum depression in 2005. This is my journey, and if it took me breaking the largest bone in my body, then recovery is something I want to share. We have to believe in ourselves and encourage one another. There's no other way to get through life, period."

It's unclear exactly where The Middle alum is on the road to recovery, but the video Brooke shared on Instagram in February featured her slowly walking with the help of a crutch.

In early March, she shared another video of herself walking up a set of stairs with the help of a doctor, crutch, and handrail.

Brooke told People that she’s working hard to recover: "I’m a fighter."

She hopes her story helps inspire others to fight through adversity, too. "If I can turn it into anything positive, or I can teach my girls, yeah, stuff is going to happen in your life, and how you respond is going to define you, and adversity will reveal you," Brooke said. "It won't make you as much as it will reveal you because you see who you are. You see what you're made up of."

"Especially women. I want them to know that they deserve to feel good about themselves and be healthier and happier and bigger, live a bigger life."