Icon Pamela Anderson has garnered notoriety for an array of reasons since she shot to fame in the 1990s for her lead role in Baywatch. Sadly, the notoriety she received, and its aftermath, was rarely what she sought – her fame, body and money were often viewed as something for others to take, consume and enjoy.
Last year, the star joined an exhaustive list of female stars who have received the biopic and/or documentary treatment, without their consent.
In an interview with Variety last week, Pamela called Pam and Tommy – the Disney+ biopic TV series, starring Lily James and Sebastian Stan that recreated the darker moments of her marriage to Motley Crue's Tommy Lee, including the leaking of their sex tape – “crushing”.
Throughout her career, she has effectively had the story of her life and fame stolen and told through other people’s words and camera lenses.
With this new Netflix documentary Pamela, A Love Story, the 55-year-old reclaims the narrative around her wild, dramatic, incredibly interesting life story – in her own words. Here are eleven of the top takeaways, from the wholesome to the downright heartbreaking.
1. Pamela has come full circle in a beautiful way, living in the house she grew up in
Although she had a rather unsettling childhood, Pamela opens up about the peace that she has found by moving back to where her life began. That said, she also calls this experience “triggering and crazy, like marrying a rock star”.
She describes her home town of Ladysmith, Vancouver Island “this nutty place where, you know, my childhood happened”, but also a form of “truth serum”, as it forces her to face up to the truth of who she is.
2. She was molested by her female babysitter - who she then tried to kill
Pamela revealed that while her parents thought her childhood babysitter could be trusted because she bought her presents, the truth was much more traumatising. “She was molesting me,” she says.
“It was like three or four years of abuse,” she goes on to explain, opening up about her efforts to protect her brother from the same fate and her attempts to kill her abuser: “I tried to stab her in the heart with a candy cane pen.”
She also suffered from a form of survivor’s guilt, after her abuser - in a bizarre twist of fate - was killed in a car crash, the day after Pamela told her she wanted her to die: “I thought I’d killed her with my magical mind”.
These experiences of abuse had a knock-on effect to her feelings of self-worth when her career began. She describes being riddled with shame around her body when she first moved to LA, because of the things she’d been through as a child, but taking back her own power over her body when she did nudity for Playboy.
3. She encountered toxic men very early in life
The star's dad Barry Anderson was dubbed “the bad boy of Ladysmith”, and Pamela witnessed domestic violence between her parents as a child, which she admits impacted how she interpreted and pursued relationships later in life. “From the beginning, I’ve been drawn to different types of bad guys,” she admits. “I didn’t equate being in love with being nice."
She describes one of her teenage boyfriends trying to run her over and kick her out of a moving car, while a partner she met in LA would repeatedly cheat on her. Pamela recounts a diary entry that she wrote: "[He's] washing [his] penis in the sink, suspicious”.
4. She was raped by a 25-year-old man when she was just 12-years-old
Pamela recounts the moment an adult man raped her at a friend’s house when she was just 12 years old – he began the assault by telling her he would give her a massage.
She describes walking around afterwards feeling she had the events of her abuse tattooed on her forehead.
These experiences of abuse had a knock-on effect on her feelings of self-worth when her career began. She describes being riddled with shame around her body when she first moved to LA, because of the things she’d been through as a child.
5. Her diaries reveal how inadequate she felt when she arrived at Playboy magazine
After describing her love of words – which feels ironic, due to how often her ability to speak her own words seem to be taken away from her – Pamela shares diary entries from throughout her career, including moments of acute imposter syndrome.
Most poignantly, young Pamela describes feeling “average” when surrounded by other women at Playboy: “I feel blessed and embarrassed at the same time, what am I doing here?"
The entries also shed light on her fearless, super romantic approach to finding love: "“I’d rather have loved for an instant than a miserable life… It's the only way to live life: vulnerable.”
6. She learned important love and life lessons from dating her Baywatch co-star Kelly Slater
Before her marriage to Tommy Lee, Pamela dated Baywatch surfer dude Kelly Slater – she was still technically seeing him when she married Tommy in Cancun.
As she sifts through old photos of herself and Kelly, Pamela reflects on what she learned from dating a man who was a “heartbreaker” and a “free spirit”.
“You don’t own anybody. Nobody owns anybody and you just let them be who they are. Sometimes it’s better.. not with you.”
7. She claims she got a rather interesting offer from Sylvester Stallone back in the day
According to Pamela, the actor and legend offered Pamela a condo and a Porsche to be “his number one girl”. The suggestion of there being any other women – a number two etc – threw Pamela for a loop, she didn't want anything less than the real thing: love itself.
Stallone reportedly told her that was the best offer she was going to get in Hollywood, but she stuck to her guns, determined to find true romance. Sylvester Stallone has since denied these allegations.
8. She likened her public and legal treatment after the sex tape leak to its own form of sexual abuse
Pamela's experience of seeking legal counsel after the leak of her and Tommy Lee's sex tape is truly horrifying to watch.
She recounts the “humiliating” moment that she was told by lawyers that she didn't have a right to privacy due to her public work on Playboy. The assumption was then made that she was fine with her naked body being broadcasted in any way, even against her will.
She describes the huge difference between choosing to pose for Playboy, and the abuse she felt at having her intimate life exposed: “Playboy was empowering, but in this case it felt like a rape”.
9. She called out the gender inequality when it came to her career progression post-tape
It's no secret that women are held to different standards than men, but when it comes to Hollywood, these stark differences are often thrown into rather stark relief.
Pamela opens up about how this inequality impacted her career after the sex tape was leaked. “It was different for me than it was for him,” she explains. “Tommy is a rock star, it all adds to the image and craziness and everything. But I knew at that point, my career was over.”
10. Pamela admits to feeling like a caricature of herself.
After the tape was leaked, the star felt she became a caricature of her past self, which led to the deterioration of her own image and thwarted her ambitions to be a “serious actress”.
She explains that this caricature status would take over, and she would find herself behaving more like that than her true self, losing who she really was in the process.
11. She admits that she is still in love with Tommy Lee, after all these years
The documentary spans the breakdown of Pamela Anderson's most recent marriage, to Dan Hayhurst. The couple married in 2020, and split in January 2022.
In the wake of this alone time, she reflects on her tumultuous relationship with Tommy Lee, calling the two of them “reckless and hopeful”. In 1998, the drummer was charged with felony spousal abuse after assaulting Pamela while she held their son. He was sentenced to six months in prison.
“I really loved your dad for all the right reasons and I don’t think I’ve loved anybody else,” she tells her son Brandon while watching old footage of herself and Lee together. "It’s f*cked."
She describes struggling to get over not being able to make it work with the father of her children, and her doubt that she'll be able to fall in love with someone else.
As she fights to redefine her relationship with herself, after so much trauma, it's doubly heartbreaking to hear how steadfast her love for Tommy Lee is, after all this time.
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