Brooke Shields says in some ways, she was addicted to her mother and their intensely close relationship, and believes she played a role in every one of her romantic relationships.

The actress and model has just released a candid memoir called "There Was A Little Girl," in which she explores her connection to her mother, Teri, who raised Shields as a single mother, acted as her manager, and died in 2012.

Shields told CTV's Canada AM that her mother was a functioning alcoholic and she realized after her mother's death that the media had long misunderstood the complexity of their relationship. She said she wrote the book because she felt it was "her turn" to talk about her.

"My mom was amazing and she was scarred, and she was sad and dark and had an addiction. She also had this vibrancy and this beguiling nature to her. And I too was in my own way addicted to her," Shields said from New York.

In the book, Shields talks about her relationship to Dean Cain, with whom she lost her virginity when she was 22; her brief marriage to Andre Agassi who was addicted to crystal meth; her love affair with Liam Neeson; and her current marriage.

"In every single one of these relationships, my mom played a part," Shields said, "and that coloured these relationships, whether it was addiction, or alcohol or my sexuality. She was a presence whether she was there or not, she played an emotional part in all these relationships."

Shields has held little back in the book, describing the night she lost her virginity and an incident in which her drunk mother dropped her newborn grandchild. Shields decided to be fully honest about all these events "because it's truth," she said.

"It's the whole truth and nothing but the truth. There's no point in trying to skirt around issues, or lie or make them somehow prettier or better," she said.

These days, Shields is a mother herself, raising two daughters with her second husband, screenwriter Chris Henchy. The actress says while she probably knew her mother better than anyone else did, she feels like she knew only one part of her. Even after writing the book, Shields is not sure she has figured her mother out.

"I've done the best I can to see all the sides of her," she said, "but she somehow remained a mystery to me."