Pamela Anderson is finally telling her side of the story in a new candid Netflix documentary [1]. "Pamela, a Love Story," directed by Ryan White and produced by Anderson's son, Brandon Thomas Lee, examines the scope of her life. For the first time, the film shares new details about her career, love life, and more, straight from the source — with some help from family, including her sons [2], Brandon, 26, and Dylan, 25.
Netflix bills the documentary — which premiered on Jan. 31, the same day that Anderson released her memoir, "Love, Pamela" — as an "intimate and humanizing portrait of one of the world's most famous blonde bombshells," also noting that it follows Anderson's life and career "from small town girl to international sex symbol, actress, activist, and doting mother." Not only does the documentary highlight her rise to fame as a Playboy model-turned-actor, but it also includes diary entries that reveal the trauma Anderson experienced as a kid. It dives into other headline-grabbing aspects of Anderson's life, too, including her high-profile relationship with ex-husband Tommy Lee [3], their sex-tape scandal [4], the men she's romanced over the years [5] (which include Mario Van Peebles and Kelly Slater [6]), how Hulu's "Pam & Tommy" series retraumatized her [7] decades later, and, of course, the constant chatter about her body in the media.
In a recent interview with Insider [8], White said, "I realized very early that this woman was willing to talk about anything and nothing was off limits." He added: "The Pamela Anderson I know is very different from the Pamela Anderson in the show. So I think the documentary is going to surprise people."
Read ahead for all the biggest revelations from "Pamela, a Love Story."
Anderson Was Sexually Abused by Her Babysitter When She Was a Child
Anderson begins the documentary by recounting "some horrible things" she experienced when she was a kid, starting with a female babysitter who abused her. "My parents thought she was a great babysitter 'cause she brought presents all the time, but she was molesting me," she revealed, noting she went through "three or four years of abuse." Anderson even confessed that she once tried to kill her babysitter. "I tried to stab her in the heart with a candy cane pen," she recalled. "And then I told her I wanted her to die. She died in a car accident the next day, so I thought I killed her with my magical mind, and I couldn't tell anybody."
Anderson Was Raped by an Older Man When She Was About 12 Years Old
In a diary entry, Anderson recalls a traumatic incident that occurred when she and a friend of hers went to hang out at a friend's condo. While her friend was upstairs with "the guy she had a crush on," Anderson claims she was raped by a 25-year-old man, whom she refers to as her friend's friend. She never told anyone what happened to her. "I tried to forget it, but it felt like it was tattooed on my forehead," she shares in the documentary. "I really had this image of 'I had sex' on my forehead when I didn't want anyone to know that I had it."
Anderson’s First Playboy Modeling Experience Helped Her Overcome Childhood Trauma
Anderson recalls feeling "very, very shy" and "super self-conscious" after being sexually abused as a child, which "paralyzed" her during her first Playboy photo shoot. However, she says that the first snap of a picture broke her out of shame. "I felt like I was throwing myself off a bridge and falling in . . . That was the first time I felt like I'd broken free of something." She adds: "It felt like it was kind of a gateway to another world. Now I was going to take the power of my own sexuality, and I did it, I think, in a really big way."
Anderson Thinks People’s Fascination With Her Body Is "Disturbing"
The former model says that when she started honestly answering the media's questions about her body and plastic surgery, it started a downward spiral in terms of how she was treated. "I don't know why my boobs, people were so interested, they weren't that newsworthy," Anderson says. "But I was just so naive. And I think, at the time, it was pretty nervy to say the truth . . . It was disturbing 'cause it was like, 'Oh my God. Really? Is this what we're talking about again?'"
Anderson Married Tommy Lee at the Same Time She Was Dating Kelly Slater
Anderson and Lee's explosive whirlwind romance led to the two getting married within four days of dating. The relationship moved so quickly that Anderson didn't even have a chance to break things off with her ex Kelly Slater [10], whom she was still dating when she tied the knot with Lee. She says that, at the time, she was supposed to go with Slater to Florida to meet his family, but her first phone call to him was to tell her she was married. "He's like, 'What?!' That was horrible," Anderson says.
Anderson and Lee Didn’t Realize Their Sex Tape Had Gone Missing Until Months Later
Anderson says she and Lee finally realized their safe was gone when Lee went to retrieve something from it one day, and at the time, he hoped it was just a practical joke. She adds that the two had no idea when their safe was stolen because they had so much construction going on at their house back then, noting that it could've been taken anytime within a six-month time period. "We didn't have any idea that anything in there was gonna be something that would hurt us," Anderson says — until they anonymously received a VHS copy of their sex tape in the mail.
Anderson and Lee Were Initially Offered $5 Million For the Rights to Their Sex Tape
Shortly after they got their sex tape in the mail, Anderson says the former couple received a letter from Bob Guccione, founder of Penthouse Magazine, who offered to buy the tape from them for $5 million in cash. "We said, 'F*ck you. Give us our tapes back,'" Anderson recalls. "This was not supposed to be for anybody else."
Anderson Compares the Right to Privacy Trial For Her and Lee’s Sex Tape to "a Rape"
At the time of Lee and Anderson's trial, Anderson was pregnant with their second child, and she was worried that the brutal depositions would negatively impact the health of their baby. She recalls seeing men in the courtroom holding up naked pictures of her and being questioned about her sex life on the stand. "The lawyers basically said, 'You're in Playboy. You have no right to privacy,'" Anderson shares. "I kept on thinking, how am I being questioned about my sexuality and preferences and body parts and where I like to make love when it's stolen property? It made me feel like I was such a horrible woman . . . Playboy was empowering for me, but in this case, it felt like a rape."
Anderson and Lee Never Made Money From Their Sex Tape
After they signed away the rights to their sex tape and it was uploaded online for millions to watch, Anderson says she and Lee "never made a dime" off of it, though, at the time, they didn't account for how big a deal the internet would come to be. "We had no idea it was gonna go all over the world in an instant," she says. Her son Brandon refers to the sex tape as "the first viral video."
Anderson Felt Like She Became a "Caricature" After Her Sex Tape Went Viral
Anderson recalls being the punchline of a lot of jokes on many talk shows, calling it "super humiliating." She says the sex tape created a certain reputation for her after that and "solidified the cartoon image, too." "You become a caricature," she notes. "I think that was the deterioration of whatever image I had." While Anderson says the sex tape only added to Lee's rock star lifestyle, it instead punctuated the end of her career.
Anderson Claims Lee Once Trashed Her "Baywatch" Trailer After Finding Out She Had to Kiss a Costar
Reflecting on the former couple's relationship and some red flags, Anderson recalls how Lee would often stop by the set of "Baywatch," noting one particular instance in which she claims he trashed her trailer in a jealous rage after learning that she had to kiss her costar David Chokachi in a scene. "He lost it," she recounts in a diary entry. "He came and trashed my trailer on the set. Put his fist through a cabinet." In an old clip of an MSNBC interview with "Baywatch" cocreator Michael Berk, he said Lee knew Anderson's call times and "would show up in the scenes where there could be an opportunity for him to get pissed." Anderson also reveals that once the "Baywatch" crew became privy to Lee's fits of anger, they'd "change the dialogue" and "change the scene" if they saw him coming.
Anderson Wrote a Letter to Her Then-infant Son, Dylan, to Explain Her and Lee’s Breakup
Anderson gave birth to her and Lee's second child, Dylan, on Dec. 29, 1997. Nearly a year after his arrival, she wrote a letter detailing some of the tumultuous events he witnessed at that time — which included a domestic dispute between Lee and Anderson that resulted in Lee going to jail for six months as well as their separation — so he could understand what happened when he was older. "October 11, 1998, my little Dilly. I felt so compelled to write to you, my little man. You've seen a lot in your nine months, and I wanted to write to you so one day you can read this and maybe understand how we came to be where we are," she wrote.
Anderson Manipulated Her Media Attention to Benefit Causes She Was Passionate About
Fed up with "talking about my boyfriends and my boobs all the time," Anderson began to use her media attention to highlight social causes she wanted to bring awareness to, including animal activism, which led to a partnership with PETA — the organization for which she also endured a brutal Comedy Central roast. "It was so raunchy. It was so not my kind of humor," she says. "But I still got to talk about things that were important to me, so it was kind of a trade-off." She adds: "Media is powerful, and it is a tool. I was already getting teased and made fun of. I wanted to take that and use it for good."
Anderson Says She Respects Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange’s Mission to Expose Truth
In the documentary, Anderson briefly touches on her controversial friendship with Assange — who's charged with allegedly aiding efforts to leak classified government information and is currently in a London prison fighting extradition to the US — and states that "it's nice to know that someone's whole life is about truth and discovering truth."
Anderson’s Kids Found Out About Her Past Before She Could Tell Them About It Herself
Anderson says she never got the chance to tell her sons about her past — including posing nude in Playboy and her and Lee's sex tape — on her terms, because they found out beforehand. Her son, Brandon, says, "When I was a kid, I thought everyone knew things about me and my family that they never should've known." "Like everyone had this dirty little secret about my family," he adds. He even recalls being "very quick to fight" anyone who brought up his mom at school. Anderson also recounts a time when her son Dylan came to her crying and asked, "Mom, why did you do that tape?"
Anderson Denies Starting the Trend of Celebrities Planting Their Own Sex Tapes
Anderson addresses rumors that she and Lee planned to leak their sex tape, calling it "ridiculous." Soon after their leak, it became common practice for other stars to put out their own tapes in an effort to get famous. "It kind of left us in that category," she says, also affirming that she doesn't regret not monetizing her sex tape. "You could give me hundreds of millions, a billion dollars, I'd never take it."
Anderson Admits She Never Got Over Her Breakup With Lee
Throughout the documentary, Anderson is visibly emotional while viewing old tapes of her and Lee. After news of Anderson's split from ex-husband Dan Hayhurst — whom she split from in January 2022 — flashes across the screen, she admits, "I never got over not being able to make it work with the father of my kids." She adds: "Even though I thought I could recreate a family, or fall in love with someone else, it's just not me. So I think that's probably why I keep failing in all my relationships. . . I think I'd rather be alone than not be with the father of my kids."
Anderson Was Completely Against the "Pam & Tommy" Hulu Series
Anderson says seeing the ads for "Pam & Tommy" gave her "nightmares," adding that she had "no desire to watch it." She notes that no one knew what she and Lee were going through with the sex-tape scandal at the time, and she believes the creators of "Pam & Tommy" should've gotten her permission before making the dark-comedy series.