FOR Pamela Anderson, the pain of the world seeing her 1995 sex tape will never go away.
And 28 years on, the Baywatch superstar has opened up about the recent Disney+ miniseries, which focused on the intimate footage of her with then-husband, rocker Tommy Lee.
She said of the show: “It really gives me nightmares. I have no desire to watch it. I’m not going to watch it.
“I never watched the tape, so I am not going to watch this.
“Nobody really knows what we were going through. They should have had to have my permission.”
Brit Lily James, who played Pamela in Pam & Tommy, was nominated for Best Actress at the Critics’ Choice Awards, while Sebastian Stan’s portrayal of her Mötley Crüe drummer husband drew critical acclaim.
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After landing the leading role, Lily sent Pamela a letter and asked to meet up — but the note went unread.
Now, in a new Netflix documentary, Pamela reveals that she spoke only to her inner circle about the Disney+ series, as well as Tommy, with whom she shares two sons, Brandon 26 and Dylan, 25.
The actress says in Pamela, A Love Story: “I texted Tommy and said, ‘How do you feel about everything?’
“And he goes, ‘Pamela, just don’t let it hurt you as much as it did the first time’.
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“To this day I do not know who stole the tape.
“There is no use figuring out anything about it. The damage is done. Why would I want to go through that again?
“I blocked that out of my life. I had to. It was a survival mechanism and now it is all coming up again.
‘It was like a rape’
“My stomach feels like it has just been punched. I don’t feel good.
“It feels like when the tape was stolen. You are just a thing that is owned by the world.”
The sex tape, which showed Pamela and Tommy naked on their honeymoon and romping in their LA mansion, was stolen from a safe in the garage of the couple’s Californian home.
Their home was being renovated at the time of the theft and the couple did not realise for a year that the video had gone missing.
They filed a police report and hired a private investigator to track it down.
Penthouse magazine had got hold of a copy but promised not to release it.
In March 1996, Pamela and Tommy launched a legal bid against the softcore porn publication to try to bring those distributing copies of the stolen tape to justice.
Rumours circulated that the couple leaked the footage themselves to cash in — but Pamela says: “I would have never monetised the stolen tape. You could give me hundreds of millions — a billion dollars. I’d never take it. Ever.”
Unlike Kim Kardashian, who saw the 2007 release of her X-rated sex tape launch her reality TV career and help turn her family into billionaires, Pamela says: “We never made a dime off it.
“You can’t put a number on the amount of pain and suffering it caused.”
In fact the tape left her career in tatters — and her heavily hyped film Barb Wire bombed at the box office.
She recalls: “It made me feel like I am such a horrible person, that I am just a piece of meat. That this should mean nothing to me as I am ‘such a whore’, basically.
“They were like, ‘Oh she was in Playboy, she likes to be in Playboy’.
“But Playboy was empowering for me. It was my choice. In this case it was like a rape.
“We were newly married, we were naked all the time and filming each other.
“It was us being goofballs. Like honking the horn with his penis. What they [the people in possession of the stolen tape] did is they found all the nudity they could and spliced it together. It was super-humiliating. You become a caricature.
“It was different for me as it was for Tommy. Tommy is a rock star and it kind of adds to the image.
“But I knew at that point my career was over. I was thinking I could have a more serious career.”
Pamela even compares the pain of the tape’s release to a sexual assault she suffered as a child.
She adds: “Not to bring up something really heavy from my childhood but when I was attacked by this guy, I thought everybody would know.
“When the tape was stolen, it felt like that.”
Referring to a courtroom appearance during her legal fight to block the tape, she recalls: “The deposition was so brutal. I remember looking at them thinking, ‘Why do they hate me so much?’ ”
Pamela and Tommy’s sons, Brandon and Dylan, have both criticised Disney and the production team.
Appearing in the two-hour Netflix documentary, Brandon says: “We hear about a TV show coming out about my parents and about the stolen tape. Why bring up something from 20 years ago that you know f***ed someone up?”
Dylan adds: “It was the worst part of her life and [Disney+] making a semi-comedy out of it didn’t really make sense.”
Pamela, who now lives at a secluded property on Vancouver Island off the Canadian coast, revealed she used to dream of making it in Hollywood. In 1989 she landed the cover of Playboy magazine and was flown to the Playboy Mansion by its boss Hugh Hefner.
She hit the big time in 1992 playing lifeguard Casey Jean Parker in Baywatch.
In 2017 she made a cameo as CJ in the big-screen adaptation of the series alongside Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron.
‘I am not a victim’
Images of her in the famous red Baywatch swimsuit have gone down in TV history.
But Pamela claims her opportunities were dashed by the sex tape.
Her film career struggled to take off with bit parts in films including Borat and Scary Movie. Pamela also had a string of failed relationships, including five marriages, in the wake of the tape.
She and Tommy divorced in 1998. Pamela found love again with singer Kid Rock, marrying in 2006 but divorcing in 2007.
That same year she married American poker player Rick Salomon, who appeared in Paris Hilton’s One Night In Paris 2004 sex tape. Pamela and Rick divorced in 2008.
Over a 12-day period in January 2020 Pamela — determined to try to find The One — married and divorced movie mogul Jon Peters, who at 75 was 22 years older than her.
She later denied the marriage was legal. Her last marriage was with labourer Dan Hayhurst, who she met while he was working on her waterside property.
They tied the knot on Christmas Eve 2020 after just a few months of dating and split up early last year.
Reflecting on her doomed romances, Pamela says: “I always felt guilty as I wanted to show my kids a traditional relationship and a man who is constant.
“I think what it all comes down to is that I never got over not being able to make it work with the father of my kids.
“And even though I thought I could recreate a family or fall in love with someone else, that is just not me. So I think that is probably why I keep failing in all my relationships. My parents were wild and crazy and madly in love and made stupid decisions and hurt each other. But they stuck it out and stayed together and I can see they are happy now.
“I think I would rather be alone than not be with the father of my kids.
“It is impossible to be with anybody else but I don’t think I could be with Tommy either.”
Keen to put the past behind her, Pamela insists she is not a victim and no longer holds bad feelings towards whoever stole the tape.
She says: “There were a lot of times when I said ‘I don’t care what people think’ as that was the only choice I had.
“If I cared what people think then I wouldn’t be here right now.
“But I care enough. I want to embrace the past.
“Embrace the truth. My life is not a ‘woe is me’ story. I am not a victim. I put myself in crazy situations — and survived them. As much pain as we can endure is kind of the catalyst to the great stuff.
“I am beyond grateful for the experiences in my life and I don’t blame anybody for anything. I am glad it happened.”
Pamela, who became an unlikely campaigner for the release of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, is now an avid campaigner for animal rights charity Peta and most recently wrapped a Broadway stint as showgirl Roxy in Chicago.
As for the future, Pamela is still trying to work out which direction her career will take. She says: “I am sure I am not finished but I have no idea what I am going to do next. My kids are grown.
“I am basically alone but I kind of like this moment right now where I have no clue.
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“At this part of my life I should be settled down somewhere but I don’t know. Maybe I will know next week.”
- Pamela, A Love Story streams on Netflix from January 31.
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