Pamela Anderson’s highly anticipated documentary landed on Netflix this week. Fans have branded ‘Pamela, a love story' a “must watch” as the iconic blonde bombshell bares her soul to the camera.
In it, the former Playboy model opens up about the controversial Pam & Tommy mini-series that was released on Disney+ last year. The drama starring Lily James focused on Pamela's whirlwind marriage to Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee and their leaked sex tape.
READ MORE: Netflix fans say Pamela Anderson documentary A Love Story is ‘a must watch’
The new documentary sees the former Baywatch star tell her side of the story. Here are seven things we learned in Netflix’s ‘Pamela, a love story.’
She sent a petition to the Queen of England
The actress is a vegetarian and a massive animal activist. After her career suffered following the release of the tape, Pam said she turned to activism and joined forces with Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) to fight for animal rights.
“I was sick of talking about my boyfriends and my boobs all the time. But I thought if I can attach it to animal activism, or activism for the environment, then it meant something.
In London, Pamela used a book signing to ask for signatures on a petition to use fake fur on hats worn by the Royal Guards at Buckingham Palace. The then 37-year-old, sent the petition with a personal note to the Queen, according to Peta.
The petition said: “We the undersigned urge the Queen to call on the Ministry of Defence to cease the use of real fur on the uniforms for the regiment of footguards.”
She documented her life
Pamela shared her love for writing and documenting life events. At the start of the documentary, she shows us a room in her family home on an island off the Canadian mainland, filled with boxes that contained memorabilia and diaries.
“I kept a lot of diaries and stuff from my childhood and all the events in my life - there’s just tons of yellow legal pads, I mean basically my life is all yellow legal pads.
“I wanted to write things down in case I forgot them. So I wrote down things thinking, if something were to ever happen to me, that there’d be evidence. Sometimes I was writing like that and sometimes I was writing out my feelings, not thinking anyone would ever see it.
“For some reason, when I was travelling around the world, everything that was important to me I sent here and I figured one day I would get here, I just didn't realise it was gonna be so soon because now I’m here surrounded by stuff,” she laughed.
Director, Emmy-nominated filmmaker Ryan White asks Pam to read out some of her entries, however, she did not want to be the one to read the journals aloud for the film.
“I don’t know if I want to go there and read them. I don’t even think I’ll watch this documentary… I like to do things just for the experience of doing it.
“I wanna move on with the next part of my life. So, it might give you more access if you have somebody else read them because I might say, ‘I don’t wanna read this or that.’
“It’s tough to go through it again ‘cause you go through it again like you’re going through it for the first time. It’s painful.”
One of the letters read in the film was an emotional one she penned to her second born son, Dylan Jagger Lee, a few months after he was born when his father Tommy Lee, was charged six months in prison for physically attacking Pam while she was holding the then newborn.
Endured sexual abuse throughout her childhood
Pam painfully recounted two major incidents in her childhood where she was sexually assaulted.
When she was a child, a female babysitter inflicted “three or four years of hell” on Anderson which she did not disclose to her parents and tried to protect her younger brother from the predator.
“I tried to kill her and tried to stab her in the heart with a candy cane pen and then I told her I wanted her to die and then 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. And I was sure that I did it, that I wished her dead and she died.”
The star said this was something that she carried heavily with her throughout her childhood.
When Pam was just 12-years-old, she was raped by a 25-year-old man.
“I had so much shame about what happened,” she says. “I felt like it was my fault. My mom was always crying about my dad, I couldn’t bear to hurt her more. I didn’t tell her or anyone.”
Pam said the abuse she suffered made her have so much “shame” about her body
“I tried to forget it, but I felt like it was tattooed on my forehead. Those were kind of my first exposure to sexual experiences too, so I think… a lot of confusion.”
Life after sex tape
After Pam and Tommy, 60, were burgled in the 90s which resulted in the release of a private intimate tape they recorded, her sons Brandon, 26, and Dylan, 25, revealed how it heavily impacted her career, sharing how they felt she was not properly compensated amid her popularity with Baywatch and other endeavours.
Pam was adamant that she did not make “a single dime” off the leaked tape, and her and Tommy turned down a $5 million dollar deal to sign the rights of the tape over to the Internet Entertainment Group.
Brandon said his mother “would've made millions of dollars if she just would have signed a piece of paper.'
“Instead, she sat back with nothing and watched her career fizzle into thin air. She was in debt most of her life.”
Dylan said he thinks her life and career would have been completely different “iif she did cash in on the tape.”
“It just shows you, right? Like, that thing guaranteed made people millions of dollars, and she was like, "No." She 100 percent cares about her family being OK and me being OK. Never cared about money,” he said in the film.
Pam added that she’s not interested in spending millions, saying she’s just happy if she has enough to get her nails done. She even box-dyes her own hair.
After Pamela’s fifth divorce, the Pam & Tommy TV series debuted which Anderson said was like living through the trauma all over again and gave her “nightmares.”
“I have no desire to watch it. Not gonna watch it. Never watched the tape, I’m not gonna watch this.
“They should’ve had to have had my permission.”
Successfully lobbied for Putin to ban seal hunting in Russia
The Queen isn’t the only world leader the activist reached out to for change. Anderson's contact with Russian president Vladimir Putin apparently dates back to 2009.
In a 2018 interview with Piers Morgan, she said.: 'Well I wrote to him and asked him to stop the importation of seal products, because this was 95% of the market, and that could potentially shut down the Canadian seal hunt, which is one of my big goals.
Putin agreed to her request and “made it actually illegal to import seal products even into the country” and invited the model to combat the problem alongside the country.
Married five times to four people
Love and relationships plays a massive role in Pam’s life, who she admits is a hopeless romantic.
She has been married five times to four people - Tommy Lee who she married after knowing him four days in 1995 until their divorce in 1998, ‘All Summer Long’ singer Kid Rock in 2006 until 2007, American poker player Rick Salomon who she married in 2007, divorced in 2008, remarried in 2014 and divorced a year later, and finally she married bodyguard Dan Hayhurst in 2020, who she is no longer with.
Pamela admitted that although she could probably never make it work with Tommy Lee, he was possibly her only love.
“I really loved your dad for all the right reasons and I really don’t think I’ve loved anybody else. It’s f*cked,” Anderson said in the film to her eldest son.
“I think I’d rather be alone than not be with the father of my kids. I think it’s impossible to be with anybody else, but I don’t think I could be with Tommy either. It’s almost like a punishment.”
New career
Having never really dabbled in the world of song and dance, Pam was asked to make her Broadway debut as Chicago’s Roxie Hart.
Her performance got rave reviews as she performed her two month stint doing eight shows a week.
“I’m not a natural singer, not a natural dancer. I’m so afraid, but I like those moments that come up and I go, ‘Oh my gosh. Can I do this?’
“You know it’s okay to start something new in your fifties, and the only thing that can ruin this, as we all know, don’t meet any men!”
“You know for once in my life, I’m just gonna be in love with myself. Have a love affair with myself,” she said.
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