Why Brooke Shields Recently Apologized to College Boyfriend Dean Cain: I Modified into ‘Timid from Disgrace’

Brooke Shields is opening up about wishing she’d lived more in the 2d — and embraced her sexuality — at some level of her romance with ex-boyfriend Dean Cain.

On this week’s duvet interview for PEOPLE, the actress, 57, remembers being in a “gigantic relationship” with the “pleasing” and “mouthwatering” Cain, 56, whereas at Princeton University.

But as she explores in her upcoming documentary, Shields used to be sexualized early on in motion photographs equivalent to 1978’s Horny Toddler (where she performed a baby prostitute) and The Blue Lagoon (1980), an intense objectification which led her to disassociate from her body.

It moreover led to shut to-constant questions about her looks and sex life from the time she used to be a teen. “I used to be the most celebrated virgin on this planet,” she has quipped.

The intensity of the honor performed out in her early romantic life — and her dynamic with Cain.

“We had a huge relationship, broke up, purchased lend a hand together all all over again after three years. And that should always had been a scrumptious time for me of reveling in it and feeling proud and free because I used to be in handle,” she tells PEOPLE.

By no technique dawdle over a myth — be a part of PEOPLE’s free day-to-day newsletter to no longer sleep-to-date on the real of what PEOPLE has to present, from juicy superstar news to driving human-ardour reports.

“But it used to be as if I used to be excellent vexed from shame, pondering every person used to be going to know, pondering of letting my fans down because I had professed one thing,” Shields provides.

Earlier than he used to be Superman on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Cain used to be Shields’ soccer-player boyfriend and classmate at Princeton University.

The mannequin and actress remembers of their relationship, “He excellent used to be so proper and loving and most consuming so in handle. And I did no longer construct it easy.”

Basically, she tells PEOPLE, she even “apologized” to her ex “a couple of years lend a hand” for no longer playing the 2d more.

“I acknowledged, ‘I’m sorry for you, and I’m in level of truth sorry for me,’ ” Shields remembers.

RELATED VIDEO: Brooke Shields Opens Up in New Doc About Child Stardom and Sexual Assault: “It is a Miracle I Survived”

A mom to two daughters this day — Rowan, 19, and Grier, 16 — Shields says she makes exercise of what she has realized from her absorb skills in communicating her hopes for them.

As she explains, “I would like them to feel celebrated rather then shamed — shamed by their body, shamed by their sexuality.”

“It is this kind of burden to lift,” Shields provides.

Brooke Shields: Horny Toddler premieres April 3 on Hulu.

For more on Brooke Shields, in discovering up the most celebrated teach of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.