We all remember Pamela Anderson being such a huge part of our 90’s, with Home Improvement, Baywatch, and of course Playboy – fourteen covers to be exact.
Through verse and text, Anderson candidly reflects on her life, traumatic childhood and string of troubled relationships.
After watching ‘Pamela, a Love Story’ I get the impression this is probably one of the first times Pam Anderson has had control of her own narrative, and how intimately she’s allowed to be seen.
Physical and sexual assaults marked her childhood. One was a babysitter when Pam was very young. whom she trusted. She wished the babysitter would die because of what she did to her. When the babysitter was killed in a car accident shortly after, Anderson says she blamed herself, and felt like she killed her.
With all that she dealt with, Anderson still never portrays herself as the victim, only a guide.
The documentary definitely gives an unfiltered view of Anderson. A lot of that comes with a re-examining of her life in the public eye, and how she was mocked and not taken seriously.
Not only does ‘Pamela, a love story’ allow her to tell her side of how her privacy was destroyed by the stolen tape, that would go viral (before we really even knew what that kind of ‘viral’ meant) online, we also learn that the Hulu series ‘Pam and Tommy’ was not exactly received well by Anderson. It felt like she was being forced to revisit a past she was done with.
While the documentary goes over both of those projects, and her time on Baywatch, it doesn’t go into Anderson’s time on Home Improvement. Maybe because of what she wrote in her memoir, ‘Love, Pamela’, about how Tim Allen flashed her, and said “I’ve seen you naked, now you’ve seen me naked.”
Anderson’s memoir offers a very revealing look inside her very rocky marriage to Mötley Crüe drummer, Tommy Lee – who she says she’s still in love with, and is probably the only man she was ever truly in love with.
The documentary is produced by her son Brandon Thomas Lee, and director Ryan White (whose documentaries include “Ask Dr. Ruth” and “Serena”), so it’s a bit guarded, yet still very open. But if you can’t trust your kids to protect you, who can you trust?
-Carla Rea
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Pamela Anderson High School yearbook photo (16 years old)
Hulton Archives via Getty Images
Pamela Anderson High School Volleyball team
Can you guess which one is Pam Anderson? (far upper left side)
Pamela Anderson High School yearbook photo (17 years old)
Pamela Anderson, Yasmine Bleeth and Alexandra Paul of Baywatch
Pamela Anderson and Paul McCartney for PETA
Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee
Pam says she is still in love with Tommy Lee
Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee
Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock
She says she was always attracted to “bad boys” but knew she made a mistake marrying Kid Rock days after marrying him.
Pamela Anderson and son Brandon Thomas Lee
Pamela Anderson at screening for "Pamela, A Love Story"
Pamela Anderson's Broadway debut in Chicago
Pamela Anderson as Roxie Hart in Chicago
