Pamela Anderson is one of the poster girls of '90s pop culture and now she's in the spotlight once more due to brand new documentary, Pamela, a Love Story, a year after Disney+ series, Pam & Tommy.
The mini-series is available to stream now, and will dramatizes the story which saw Canadian-born Anderson and her then-husband, Mötley Crüe drummer, Tommy Lee, make a sex tape in 1995 and have that tape stolen, duplicated and sold all over the world.
Read more: How to watch Pam & Tommy in the UK
The series is adapted from a Rolling Stone article which came out in 2014 that saw journalist Amanda Chicago Lewis dig out the real story. You can read more about the show, here.
First off, Pamela Anderson herself was not involved in the making of Pam & Tommy. The rights to the aforementioned Rolling Stone article were bought by the producers who then attempted to get in touch with the Baywatch and Barb Wire star, but heard nothing.
The man in charge of the series, D.V. DeVincentis told Entertainment Weekly: "We particularly wanted to let Pamela Anderson know that this portrayal was very much a positive thing and that we cared a great deal about her and wanted her to know that the show loves her."
It's not surprising that 54-year-old perhaps wasn't keen to get involved, she's had a busy few decades and the sex tape drama must seem like another lifetime.
Previous to her ascension to fame, Pamela grew up in Canada and has spoken in recent years about the terrible sexual abuse she faced as a youngster. In 2014 she revealed at the Cannes Film Festival that she'd been molested by a female babysitter between the ages of six to 10, raped at 12 by a 25-year-old man and gang-raped by her boyfriend and six friends. She said at the event, where she was launching her animal rights charity - The Pamela Anderson Foundation - "Needless to say, I had a hard time trusting humans. I just wanted off this earth."
After being discovered at a football game at home in Canada, Pamela appeared for the first time as Playboy cover girl in October 1989, something she's gone on to do 14 times over the past three decades.
From there she moved into acting, appearing on Tim Allen comedy, Home Improvement, before she became globally famous as lifeguard CJ Parker in Baywatch, a role she played for five years.
It was during her time on Baywatch that she met and married Tommy Lee - the pair were married after 96 hours of knowing each other and divorced three years later, having two sons in the meantime, Brandon and Dylan.
In 1995 they filmed themselves having sex and that tape was stolen by an electrician, Rand Gauthier, who took a safe from the couple's home after rock and roll bad boy, Tommy, did not pay him for work done.
The tape was uploaded to the early internet and bootlegged across the globe. Anderson and Lee filed a $10 million lawsuit to attempt to prevent the tape from being published, but the suit was eventually dropped.
Anderson said in 2015 that a deal was made to stop the 'shenanigans' and that she didn't get a single penny from the sale of the tape around the world. The stress led to tensions in the marriage and Lee was sentenced to six months in jail for spousal abuse towards Anderson.
The pair divorced in 1998 but briefly reconciled in 2008-2010 and, due to sharing tattoo needles, the actress contracted Hepatitus C from Lee. Thankfully, after living with the illness for 16 years, Anderson posted on Instagram saying she was free of the disease.
Other than Lee, Anderson was also married to Kid Rock from 2006 to 2007, and to Rick Salomon from 2007 to 2008 (and again from 2014 to 2015). She fell into a whirlwind romance with Jon Peters in 2020, and although there were rumours of a marriage they never obtained a marriage license. She wed Dan Hayhurst in December 2020 - but they split recently.
Since Baywatch Anderson has dipped in and out of acting and is a passionate advocate for animal rights, setting up her own foundation in 2014 and she's also a board member and Honorary Director of PETA, is an advocate for the The National Domestic Violence Hotline and she also advocates for The Courage Foundation, which defends socio-political whistleblowers such as Ed Snowden, Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange.
