Pamela Anderson Has Never Read the Letter From Lily James About ‘Pam & Tommy’
When Hulu’s miniseries Pam & Tommy was released, actress Pamela Anderson was clear that she did not approve of her life story being used for the show’s story. She particularly objected to the fact that her sex tape with ex-husband Tommy Lee was central to the plot, as that tape was stolen and leaked and she considered it a violation of her privacy.
In a new piece for the New York Times to promote her book, Love, Pamela, which is being released in tandem with her Netflix doc, Pamela, A Love Story, Anderson shares how Lily James reached out to her before the miniseries’ release — and she hasn’t reached back.
James playing Anderson across from Sebastian Stan as the Mötley Crüe drummer, and apparently wanted to forge some connection or make an explanation to Anderson. But she wasn’t interested.
“It was already hurtful enough the first time,” said Anderson, referring to the tape’s leak. “It’s like one of those things where you’re going, ‘Really? People are still capitalizing off that thing?’”
The Baywatch actress says she never replied to James or read it, nor did she watch the show. She does have “a scanned copy of that letter still sits in [Anderson’s] inbox somewhere, unread.”
Her new book shares very sensitive details of her life, including multiple sexual assaults in her childhood and young adulthood, as well as the domestic violence she was subjected to in her marriage to Lee. The drummer eventually served time in jail for felony spousal abuse and they were divorced in 1998.
In the piece, Anderson discusses her career trajectory as well, and posing nude early on.
“It was my choice,” she said, adding that it also “gave some people the impetus, sadly, to treat me without respect.”
It was also revealed that while she was on Baywatch, she didn’t have an agent or management, and missed out on a lot of money-making opportunities.
“I was a little girl from Canada coming here and running on a beach,” she said. “Like, how would you think that would make any money?”
Since her divorce from Lee, Anderson has been married five more times: to musician Kid Rock, Rick Salomon (who she married twice), Jon Peters, and Dan Hayhurst. She and Hayhurst connected over the pandemic as he worked on her property in a construction project. She currently lives in Canada in a family house.
Aimée Lutkin is the weekend editor at ELLE.com. Her writing has appeared in Jezebel, Glamour, Marie Claire and more. Her first book, The Lonely Hunter, will be released by Dial Press in February 2022.
