I would leave parties before drugs happened, says Brooke Shields

Los Angeles: Actress Brooke Shields, who began her showbiz journey at the age of 12, says she avoided being a Hollywood wild child by leaving parties before drugs happened.

Shield made her big screen debut as a child prostitute in Louis Malle`s controversial `Pretty Baby` at the young age of 12. The 47-year-old actress, who is now a mother to two young daughters, said she had a trick to keep from walking down the path of Hollywood destruction, Us magazine reported. "I would get invited to Studio 54, but I`d leave before all the craziness and drugs happened. I never saw the bag passed around. Andy Warhol and all those guys were very sweet to me. There was something about me that they wanted to protect and uphold," Shield said. Despite her controversial debut, Shield said she always took on risky roles. "I think that the reason why I was unfazed was because there was an innocence to the characters. In Pretty Baby the director didn`t want a little Lolita, he wanted an innocent kid and he got that." She also credits her mother Teri for protecting her during her growing up years in the showbiz. "She wanted me to stay a kid for as long as possible, which may seem like a contradiction, but there was this freedom and naivety where I wasn`t cognizant of things. I wasn`t cognizant enough to know that you would be insecure or uncomfortable." PTI