In Pamela Anderson’s forthcoming memoir, which will be released on 31 January, the former Baywatch star and Playboy model reflects on her childhood, career and early life.
In the book, titled Love, Pamela, Anderson, 55, speaks out against the way she was sexualised from a young age and the way she was often mistreated by people who felt entitled to her body.
She first rose to fame as the “blonde bombshell” of the Nineties, after joining the soap Baywatch aged 25,
Told through poetry and storytelling, Anderson also recounts the events that unfolded around the theft of private footage of her and then-husband Tommy Lee having sex in 1996, which was later sold online, netting $77m (£50m) in 12 months for the illegal distributors, according to The Guardian.
Ahead of the book’s release, Anderson said that her memoir chronicles “just one girl’s messy life”, adding that it is a “celebration of imperfections”.
She told People: “These are all my feelings, about my life – no ‘Woe is me’, though some times were tough. I made it through and had to find love in grace and dignity mixed with humour, acceptance and forgiveness.”
With excerpts from Anderson’s tell-all autobiography published in the run-up to its publication, here are the claims and revelations so far:
She said her relationship with Tommy Lee may have been the only time she was “truly in love”
In reflecting on her relationship with Mötley Crüe musician Tommy Lee, who she was married to from 1995 to 1998, Anderson said it was the only time she was “ever truly in love”.
She wrote: “My relationship with Tommy may have been the only time I was ever truly in love,” before noting: “We had fun and our rule was no rules.”
The couple married in Cancun, Mexico, in 1995 after beginning their relationship earlier that year. According to Anderson, the pair just “wanted to have babies and be together forever”.
In June 1996, the pair welcomed their first son, Brandon. The couple later welcomed another son, Dylan, in 1997.
Anderson has remarried multiple times since her divorce from Lee. She married and divorced Kid Rock in 2006, before marrying producer Rick Solomon in 2007, and against in 2014. The pair divorced a year later. Anderson also reportedly married producer Jon Peters in 2020, according to E! News, before announcing their separation 12 days later.
She said the leak of the pair’s intimate tape “ruined lives”
“It ruined lives, starting with our relationship - and it’s unforgivable that people, still to this day, think they can profit from such a terrible experience, let alone a crime,” she writes, according to People.
She claimed that “Home Improvement” actor Tim Allen flashed her when she was 23 years old
The former Baywatch star, who was 23 at the time, wrote of encountering Allen, then 37, in a hallway near the dressing rooms.
“On the first day of filming, I walked out of my dressing room, and Tim was in the hallway in his robe,” the extract reads, according to Variety.
“He opened his robe and flashed me quickly – completely naked underneath. He said it was only fair, because he had seen me naked. Now we’re even. I laughed uncomfortably,” Anderson continues.
By this time in her career, Anderson had been a prominent Playboy model and had appeared in several nude photoshoots.
In a statement, Allen denied that the incident ever took place. “No, it never happened. I would never do such a thing,” he told Variety on Sunday (22 January).
The Independent has contacted representatives for Tim Allen for comment.
Anderson appeared in early episodes of the comedy series as Lisa, a work colleague to Allen’s lead character, Tim Taylor, on the home repairs television show Tool Time.
She said her 1998 divorce from Lee was one of the “hardest, lowest, most difficult” points in her life
In 1998, less than a year after Anderson gave birth to her second child with Lee, the couple got into an argument at home amid the leaked tapes’ stress.
According to Anderson, the altercation turned violent when her then-husband “ripped” their oldest son away from her and “threw” her and the couple’s seven-month-old son “into a wall”.
The Independent has contacted representatives of Tommy Lee for comment.
Anderson recalls calling 911, at which point Lee was arrested. The musician later pleaded no contest to felony spousal battery and was sentenced to six months in jail. Anderson filed for divorce in the same year, with the model revealing in her memoir that that was when their “hell began”.
“I still couldn’t believe that the person I loved the most was capable of what had happened that night,” she writes, according to People. “We were both devastated, but I had to protect my babies.”
Lee was sentenced to six months in jail for assaulting her, after their divorce in 1998.
Anderson said her two sons are “miracles” considering their “gene pool”
She has credited her two children Brandon, 26, and Dylan, 25, for convincing her to finally share her story in her new autobiography and accompanying Netflix documentary, Pamela: A Love Story, both set to be released on 31 January.
“Brandon and Dylan are true miracles, considering their gene pool,” she writes, appearing to reference her ex-husband Lee.
She went on to applaud her sons, writing that they had “been through so much” but “are not full of holes”.
“We dealt with it the best way we knew how and some of it got crazy,” she wrote of the attention the family received after the intimate tape was publicised. “And Tommy and I, between the two of us, I don’t think we had the maturity level to really handle it all.”
Love, Pamela, will be released alongside Anderson’s Netflix film Pamela, a love story on the same day, 31 January.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, you can call the 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline, run by Refuge, on 0808 2000 247, or visit their website here.
