Pamela Anderson has said that she doesn’t blame Lily James for portraying her in the series Pam and Tommy.
Last year, James and Sebastian Stan starred in Hulu’s miniseries about the leaking of Anderson and her husband, Mötley Crüe musician Tommy Lee’s, sex tape.
The show was made without collaboration with Anderson, leading to public criticism of the series.
While she never commented publicly on the show, Courtney Love took aim at the project, calling it a “disgusting” show she said was causing her friend Anderson “complex trauma”.
In a new interview ahead of the release of her Netflix documentary Pamela, A Love Story, Anderson offered up her opinion on James’s performance.
“I heard she’d been nominated for an Emmy, but maybe that was a joke,” Anderson told The Guardian.
Backtracking, she reasoned: “It’s not her fault; it’s a job. But whoever created it – well, it just feels like something else stolen.”
Anderson added that she had felt “violated” by the show, asking: “How are they allowed to do that?”
The Independent has contacted James’s representatives and Hulu for comment.
When Pam and Tommy was released, James revealed that she had personally reached out to Anderson in hope of speaking to her before filming began.
“I was really hopeful that she would be involved,” she said. “I wish it had been different. My sole intention was to take care of the story and to play Pamela authentically.”
Of contacting Anderson, she added: “I was very hopeful that we would be in touch right up until we started filming.”
In Anderson’s new Netflix documentary, the Baywatch star will explore her past, as well as the release of Pam and Tommy and her recent appearance in Chicago on Broadway.
The trailer, released earlier this month, opens with Anderson seemingly referencing the show reigniting public interest in the sex tape.
“I didn’t sleep last night at all,” she says. “I blocked that stolen tape out of my life in order to survive. And now that it’s all coming up again, I feel sick.”
Pamela, A Love Story arrives on Netflix on 31 January.
