Watching Pamela Anderson finally thrive is truly beautiful—but society still owes her an apology

I was just a kid when Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee were splashed all over every tabloid in existence, but I vividly remember seeing the cheesy headlines and scandalous photos while standing in the grocery store check-out line with my mother. Thankfully, the new Pamela Anderson documentary on Netflix dives so far past the cultural zeitgeist of that singular period of her life to shine a long-overdue light on the smart, funny, self-aware, ethereal woman she truly is. And how deeply wronged she’s been at almost every turn in her life.

In “Pamela, a love story,” Anderson reveals she endured traumatic sexual abuse as a child at the hands of a babysitter, was raped twice at 12 and 14, and was then re-victimized when her private tape with then-husband Tommy Lee was stolen and made public in 1995. But it doesn’t end there. The documentary also highlights the many, many, many ways she was used as a public punching bag for misogyny for years. YEARS. By male late-night television hosts, prominent female journalists, radio jockeys, tabloids, paparazzi and even her famous peers.

All because she had the audacity to feel confident in her body and her sexuality, and pose nude for Playboy. While we may not blink an eye at a woman doing such a thing now, back then she was basically treated like a pin-up version of Hester Prynne.

Looking at the sexism of past decades through a 2023 lens is bound to be jarring, of course. But in “Pamela, a love story,” Anderson shows how meticulously she’s documented her own life—on yellow legal pads, through home videos and old journals—ensuring she and the rest of us know that lens isn’t rose-colored.

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The documentary spends a good deal of time on the stolen tape, and how deeply and traumatically it affected Anderson and her marriage to Lee. She was pregnant with her second son, Dylan, when the couple decided to sue IEG, the company that purchased the tape, for violating their right to privacy by distributing the stolen property worldwide.

“I was nervous that it was all going to affect the health of our baby,” she said about participating in the deposition. “I didn’t know that I was gonna be completely humiliated.” 

She said lawyers from the opposing side held up nude photos of her in the deposition room.

“The lawyers basically said, ‘You’re in Playboy, you have no right to privacy,'” she continued. “They would ask about my sex life and I kept on thinking, ‘How am I getting questioned about my sexuality and my preferences and my body parts and where I like to make love when it’s stolen property?'” 

She and Lee never profited one penny on the sale and distribution of their stolen tape. And while it may be a foregone conclusion that Pamela Anderson is owed redemption by society, in 2022 Hulu released “Pam & Tommy,” a fictional miniseries documenting her whirlwind relationship with Lee, the sex tape debacle, and the effect it had on her career vs. his. So even as recent as last year—almost two decades after the tape scandal—Anderson was forced to re-live her life’s trauma without even being informed or consulted on the project.

While it’s more than a little nauseating to watch Jay Leno, Matt Lauer, and David Letterman leer over her chest, grill her about Playboy and “Baywatch,” and treat her as if she was nothing more than their collective property because she deigned to be a publicly sexual and confident woman, seeing Anderson thrive in her life as a woman and mother now is, truly, beautiful.

Her outlook on life and love remains uplifting, too.

“I’d rather have love for an instant than a miserable life,” she wrote in her diary, per the documentary. “I love being in love. And being vulnerable. And being giving. It’s the only way to live life. Vulnerable.”

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She currently lives in her hometown of Vancouver with her mom, cuts her own grass and does her own grocery shopping. She recently finished a stint on Broadway, starring as Roxie Hart in “Chicago,” and lives a calm, peaceful life after years of failed relationships in the public eye. Her sons, Dylan and Brandon, absolutely adore their mother and the respect they have for her is palpable. Their support and admiration is any mother’s dream.

It’s great to see her make such a brilliant comeback, particularly now that she’s telling her story in her own words for the first time. But it’s also a reminder that this beautiful, talented woman with a larger-than-life personality never should have had to “come back” from anything in the first place.