Brooke Shields is an influential figure in the spotlight, but she is also a protective mother to a daughter who wanted to step into reality TV. The “Pretty Baby” star sat down with TODAY’s Jenna Bush Hager and Sheinelle Jones and spoke openly about the knot in her stomach when her eldest, Rowan Francis Henchy, joined the cast of Bravo’s reality series “Next Gen NYC.” As she talked about it, she revealed that nothing quite prepared her for the moment.
Brooke Shields is ‘worried’ about daughter getting cast for reality TV show ‘Next Gen NYC’
Speaking of her daughter joining reality TV, Brooke Shields told the TODAY hosts, “I was sick to my stomach.” Shields admitted without a shred of pretense that she knew the entertainment business inside out, especially since she started working as a young actor in an era when “they didn’t have reality shows back in my day.”
Shields added, “You were not praised for bad behavior.” She recalled, “Bad behavior was not really the goal. And so a lot of ratings kind of is geared towards that.”
Rowan, now 23, graduated from Wake Forest University in 2025 and dreams of becoming a broadcast journalist. To her mother, a show all about drama felt like a major detour, so Shields did what a mom would do — she sat down to talk to her daughter, telling her, “Don’t be a… you know what I mean? Don’t.”
She also told Henchy, “Like, be the one. Be the voice of reason. You’re going to be fine.” Shields urged her to treat the Bravo and Peacock gig as a business move. She told her daughter, “See if you can translate that into another opportunity. It’s a business choice that you’re making.” Shields further added, “This should be a stepping stone of some kind.”
While the advice came from a place of protection, Shields now sees an unexpected upside. She told the hosts, “It’s given her a lot of confidence in a way that I — that it’s so nice to see.” Watching her daughter walk onto a reality TV set still makes her nervous. However, Brooke Shields has not looked away as Rowan finds her wings.
Originally reported by Ishika Mishra on Momtastic.
