In 2008, Teri blasted daughter Brooke Shields and her husband in The Enquirer
The National Enquirer ran a story in the February 28, 2008 edition featuring an interview with Brooke Shields’ mother and former manager, Teri. Teri told The Enquirer that Brooke refused to let her babysit her granddaughters and said that her daughter and the girls would only visit her occasionally for a short while. She added that she doesn’t like Brooke’s husband, Chris Henchy, and claimed he is too demanding of her granddaughters and controlling towards Brooke. Teri approved of her daughter’s first husband, Andre Agassi.

In Teri’s 2008 interview with The Enquirer, she told a story that made it clear why Brooke would no longer let her babysit her grandchildren. She also said that she’s an alcoholic and that she still struggles with drinking. It seems there are good reasons for her strained relationship with her daughter:

In an exclusive Enquirer interview, a bitter Teri lashed out at her famous daughter for turning her back on her – and blasted Brooke’s husband Chris Henchy for his “Svengali-like” control.

She also admitted that she has continued to struggle with her alcoholism.

“I don’t see Brooke or my granddaughters much, and if they do come over, it’s only for a little while and then they’re gone,” 74-year-old Teri lamented.

“I wish I could see Brooke, but all she does is work. They were here over Christmas, dropped off some packages and were gone.

“But Brooke always makes time to visit her friends no matter how busy she is.

“I’m often disappointed in her, like the times she snaps, ‘What do you ever do for me?’ That’s what her husband tells her to say.

“I preferred Brooke’s first husband Andre Agassi over Chris.”

Teri says the contempt she holds for TV writer Chris stems from his treatment of her – as well as an incident she witnessed that involved the couple’s first-born daughter Rowan.

“A few years back during a meal in her high chair, Rowan started crying and decided she didn’t want to eat anymore,” Teri told The Enquirer.

“So in a fit, Rowan threw her dishes and food onto the floor. Just then, Chris walks in and in a raised voice says: ‘What’s this?’ He was so angry he made that poor little girl get down on the floor and pick up every last thing. Can you imagine?

“Brooke goes along with whatever he says – that’s the kind of Svengali-like influence he has over her.”

An Enquirer reporter visited with the legendary stage mom at her rambling home in Haworth, NJ.

Teri revealed Brooked banned her from being alone with her daughters because of an incident a few years back when Teri was baby-sitting for Rowan at the couple’s New York City apartment house.

Teri book Rowan in a rocker and left to pick up a food delivery in the lobby – but got stuck in the couple’s private elevator for hours.

“Rowan got out of her rocker and wandered around the apartment, crying and unsupervised,” Teri told The Enquirer.

“Fortunately, nothing happened to her. But that was the end for me – and it breaks my heart.”

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, February 28, 2008]

There’s definitely some bad blood there between Brooke and her mom. It’s also apparent that Teri has a relationship with the National Enquirer and knows at least one journalist there.

Brooke Shields: Tabloid took advantage of mom; Enquirer: we’ve known Teri for over 10 years
Fast forward to over a year later and Teri is staying in a nursing home in New Jersey. A reporter from The Enquirer came to visit her and took her out to run some errands and then to a restaurant next door. Of course they were trying to get some updated dirt on her relationship with her famous daughter, but they clearly know her and have a relationship with her. Brooke Shields was so livid that The Enquirer journalist was allowed to visit her mom she told People Magazine that a tabloid “checked her mother out of a nursing home.” They were only taking her for errands she asked them to run and for lunch down the block. While the Enquirer reporter may have been taking advantage of the situation it’s not like they didn’t know her:

Brooke Shields’s mother, who suffers from dementia, was checked out of a New Jersey nursing home Thursday by a journalist seeking a “tabloid story,” the outraged actress tells PEOPLE.

Teri Shields, 75, was later found unharmed at a restaurant next door to an assisted living center in Old Tappan, N.J., talking to a freelance reporter, according to police, who say no arrests have been made but that the case remains under investigation.

“I intend to take every lawful action against all who were involved or who authorized this despicable act,” Brooke Shields says in a statement to PEOPLE.

The actress claims her mother was targeted by the National Enquirer.

“My mother Teri Shields has been diagnosed with dementia. For her safety, she has temporarily been in a senior living facility, a very difficult decision for me,” she says. “Late Thursday afternoon, I was alerted by Old Tappan Police that my mother had been signed out of the facility by two reporters of the National Enquirer … who falsely claimed they were friends of hers.”

She adds: “They then drove my 75-year-old mother around looking for a tabloid story. As anyone knows who has a parent who suffers from dementia or Alzheimer’s, it is one of the most difficult experiences you can go through as a son or daughter. The idea that the National Enquirer took advantage of her state is reprehensible and disgusting.”

In a statement, the National Enquirer responds: “A freelance reporter who has known Teri Shields for more than 10 years visited her Thursday at the assisted living facility where Brooke says she moved her. Teri asked the reporter to take her out to lunch and to run some errands. The freelance reporter then got permission from the facility to do so.”

According to Old Tappan Police Department Capt. Thomas Shine, officers were called to the assisted living facility at 3 p.m. Thursday to look for Teri Shields. A supervisor at the facility said the elder Shields had been checked out.

“It was more along the lines that she had been allowed to leave, based upon their protocol or policy,” Shine tells PEOPLE. “It had been an extended period of time” since she left.

“Our officer located her with some form of a journalist, I think a freelance journalist, in an eatery right next door,” Shine continues. “She wasn’t harmed in any way shape or form. She was fine. The officers discussed the circumstances with her. And she literally walked with one of my officers next door to the assisted living center.”

Shine did not identify the journalist or a media outlet.

The journalist was interviewed by police, as was a photographer who was working with the reporter but wasn’t on the scene at the time officer arrived.

No charges have been filed, and the Shields family had not yet sought a criminal complaint, says Shine.

[From People]

People will be quick to condemn the National Enquirer, but there are two sides to every story. Having read some of The Enquirer’s coverage of Brooke’s relationship with her mom, it’s hard to know who to side with. They posted a very plausible account of events on their website, and from their perspective they were just doing their job and weren’t exploiting an elderly lady. If their reporter has known Teri for ten years he may not be aware that she’s less coherent now than she was a year ago or if she’s unable to make her own decisions. You wonder if Brooke was more upset over the way her mom has trashed her in the tabloid in the past and less about the fact that journalists visited her. On the other hand, since Brooke’s mom suffers from dementia you can understand why she is so protective of her and outraged over what happened. It’s not as if they were there to help her out without getting a story. The Enquirer’s account sounds believable to me. At the same time you also question whether Teri is able to make her own decisions at this point and if the facility had the authority to approve the visit.

Here is Brooke out with her mother, Teri, and daughter Grier, three, in NY on 5/10/09. It looks like they’re at least visiting. Credit: Daniel/INFphoto.com