Recently, as people began to understand what I am trying to do in my painting.
When were you happiest?
Question
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Identity & self
Question
What do you value most in your friends?
Relationships
Question
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Identity & self
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Asked in 52 of the 131 consecutive instalments of The Guardian's The Q&A harvested on 2026-08-29.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
On a beach, watching my girls do cartwheels, with a Goombay Smash with a floater on top.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, February 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
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Simon Le Bon
English singer
I was very happy to be alive when I surfaced after my yacht, Drum, capsized in the Fastnet Race in 1985. I was in an air pocket for 40 minutes, and had to take off my long johns to be able to surface.
When I was naive to the complexities of life.
T Bone Burnett
Musician and record producer
My happiest moment was being in the room when my daughter was born, and seeing her draw her first breath and turn from what looked like gray clay into the deepest, most vibrant, most psychedelic crimson. It was an unforgettable, unimaginable explosion of energy and potential—of promise and pure love.
More from Brooke Shields
View profile →I would erase my fear of dying, but I suppose that would be erasing some of my human condition.
Humor. Laughing with my girlfriends is one of my great joys.
Watching my girls laugh together. It is more short-lived than I’d like, but it does happen!
Drowning. The feeling of not being able to take a breath. I’m sure my therapist would have something to say about the deep psychological reasons for it.
Gloria Steinem.
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