Pam Anderson Doesn’t Want Your Redemption
I’m sitting across from Pamela Anderson, at her kitchen table, trying to explain to Pamela Anderson that I could put a filter on my face that would make me look like Pamela Anderson.
“What?” Anderson says, her blue eyes widening. “What is it — what could it possibly do?”
I open TikTok to show her, angling the camera toward our faces — but Anderson ducks out of the frame. “I am not doing it on myself. I will not. I refuse.”
Anderson, 55, looks ethereal in loose-fitting all white, against the backdrop of the icy Salish Sea, onto which her little beach cabin overlooks. She puts on a pair of reading glasses to examine my screen — which has now transformed my face into a 1990s version of her: Exaggerated makeup, hair in a tousled bun, baby bangs fringed over thin striped eyebrows, mouth in a lip-lined pout.
Anderson shrieks. “Wowwwww. What?! That's insane.”
She’s laughing hysterically now, demanding that her assistant do his face, too. “You gotta do this, Jonathan! Do the Nineties Pam! Oh my God. I mean, the lips. How does that even work?!”
She looks at herself in the reflection — there’s a mirror behind us — then back down at the phone, taking her hair out of what can only be described as a 90s Pam messy bun.
“This is an out-of-body experience,” she says, wrapping herself in a sweater (also white). “Do my kids know about this?”
Also, she wants to know: Why would anybody want to recreate that look?
And yet everybody seems to want to recreate that look, that era, of late, from fashion to makeup trends to the endless reboots of the television shows we once loved. As such, Pamela Anderson may be living a peaceful, social media-free existence with her dogs in the small town in Canada where she grew up (it’s called Ladysmith, and it’s known for its annual Christmas light show), writing poetry and baking vegan bread, but that 90s-era pinup version of her seems to have been catapulted back into the zeitgeist.
Baywatch, the series that helped make her a star, is now available “remastered” on Amazon. The high cut red swimsuit she made famous — one a deranged fan once broke into her house and fell asleep wearing — is back again. The 90s Pamela aesthetic — the boobs, the hair, the clothes, along with that signature baby voice — is not only a popular Halloween costume but an entire internet aesthetic (see: PamCore). Lately, Anderson says, she can’t even go to the grocery store in her tiny town without somebody asking, “Do you think you and Tommy will get back together?”
Culture cycles in loops of 30 years, or so I read once, so maybe this 90s obsession was only a matter of time. But it is also the product of a Hulu series that purports to document Anderson’s relationship with Tommy Lee — Mötley Crüe drummer, her husband twice, and the father of her children, now grown — and the sex tape that led to its unraveling.
For Anderson, “Pam & Tommy” felt like just another exploitation…
To keep reading, check out my full story in the NYTimes (and the amazing photos!!)
With special thanks to my editor, Alicia Wittmeyer, factchecker Glyn Peterson, research guru Sharon Attia and photo director Jackie Bates. It takes a village! ✨
This is such a joy to read 🙏🏼
Just tweeted this, Jessica!!! Magnificent!!