‘It Had to Be All or Nothing’: Pamela Anderson on Her New Netflix Documentary and Finally Speaking Her Truth

Pamela Anderson’s life doesn’t read like a typical fairy tale—far from it, in fact. But as a hopeless romantic, she still believes in them, and as a dyed-in-the-wool storyteller (“I’m Finnish—it’s in my blood”), Anderson can’t help but spin straw into gold, reflecting on the highs and lows of her life. 

The 55-year-old actor, model, and activist is bracing for the release of her Netflix documentary, Pamela, a Love Story, and new memoir, Love, Pamela, both out on January 31. Each one charts Anderson’s rise from a small-town girl in Canada to a ’90s sex symbol in Hollywood, becoming a Playboy pinup, embodying the California dream on Baywatch, and fighting the perils of fame, including, yes, that stolen sex tape. 

“It had to be all or nothing,” Anderson tells Vogue over the phone from her home in Ladysmith, British Columbia, where she grew up. “Since I am in public and people have access to so many private moments of life, the best thing I can do is double down and tell my story right from day one. I’m not trying to push a narrative. I’m not trying to change anyone’s perspective. I’m not trying to change anyone’s idea of me. It’s just a life story.”

While stripping back her full-face bombshell façade—eschewing smoky eyes and frosted pink lips for a bare face and ice blue gaze framed by her Scandinavian blonde lengths—Anderson gets candid in the documentary with a series of recent interviews, decades’ worth of never-before-seen camcorder footage, and journal entries read aloud by an actor. “I just opened my archives, gave them the keys to the safe with all my diaries in it, and just said, ‘Have at it,’” she says. Anderson pulls back the curtains on her painful childhood (including the traumas she survived as a young girl), her turbulent love life, becoming a mother (she shares two sons, Brandon Thomas and Dylan Jagger, with her ex-husband Tommy Lee), and rebuilding her life and career after the fallout from an unthinkable invasion of privacy. She also opens up about the sexism and misogyny she faced in the wake of the sex tape, including interviews that were often reduced to “boyfriends and boobs” by predominantly male journalists.

Yet while revisiting many of the hardest moments of her life, Anderson offers a look into a much more peaceful present day. She lives with her parents on the same Vancouver Island property she was raised on—where, as a self-proclaimed “eternal homemaker,” she loves to cook, bake, and spend time with her dogs by the beach. She’s also relishing this new act of her career, from fronting fashion campaigns for Jacquemus and Heaven by Marc Jacobs to making her Broadway debut as Roxie Hart in Chicago last year. (“It’s okay to start something new in your 50s,” she emphasizes in the lead-up to opening night.) Taking back the narrative and setting the record straight after the release of Hulu’s Pam & Tommy, which was made without her consent and released during the making of the documentary, it’s a new chapter for Anderson. Vogue caught up with her to discuss it all.

Vogue: In their titles, both your memoir and documentary revolve around love. Why did you want to make love a common thread in telling your story?

Pamela Anderson: Well, my book, I felt, was kind of a love letter to the world, and I always write “Love, Pamela” for everything, so I thought that was a great title. I had no idea what Netflix wanted to call the documentary. I didn’t really have any part of that. But I guess I’m a romantic. I’m always talking about love, romance, compassionate living, and the sensual revolution. So I guess everything I do is really always revolving around love.

After a fictionalized portrayal made without your consent, we finally hear from you directly about what life was like for you leading up to and during the release of your stolen sex tape. How does it feel to be able to speak your truth?

I’ve been dancing around all of these tabloid stories, TV shows, marriages, and people’s opinions. I feel like this is the first opportunity when I’ve been able to say, Well, this is how I did it. I don’t know how you would’ve done it, but this is the way I survived it all, and with a smile. Even though there have been hard times, it will work out. So hopefully, it’s not a woe-is-me thing; it’s not a victim-y thing. I’m not a victim. I’ve had a great life and an opportunity to live such a heightened experience when it comes to love and romance and seeing the world. I’m very fortunate, so to be able to write from this perspective—at my age to look back—it’s been very therapeutic for me, and I think it’s been lifesaving.

Your resilience, especially given the lack of sympathy from the public, continues to be so inspiring. From being a new mother during the leak of the tape to being pregnant again during those brutal depositions, how were you able to rise above it all?

Well, I mean, you shouldn’t get your approval or comfort from the public. You really have to get it from yourself. So I always had these survival mechanisms that weren’t really about staying in your body and dealing with what was going on. But being pregnant, I knew it was a turning point for me where I realized I couldn’t run anywhere. I can’t go anywhere. I have children. I have a baby inside me. He feels everything I feel. I have to find some kind of hope in all of this for him. And so that was an easy choice. That’s what kept us alive. You can only dance with the devil for so long. I just felt like they were going to win. Not that they’re going to win the lawsuit—it wasn’t about winning or losing. It’s about maintaining your health, sanity, and quality of life. It has proved to be the right decision because I have a wonderful life. I have come to a point where I’m content, and I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time. You have to make those good decisions for yourself. It may not seem like it in the moment, but eventually, down the road, you’ll be validated somehow.

In regards to the relentless emphasis on your body in interviews and for punchlines, you spoke about how there needs to be a line drawn in asking women about their bodies. Can you expand on this? 

I always felt in an interview, when someone asked you something, you had to answer. I didn’t understand. I didn’t have publicists back then. I didn’t have people to guide me or help me. You don’t even realize when you’re speaking to somebody that that interview is going to be read all over the world. You just think you’re talking across the table from someone or you’re speaking on the phone to somebody. All these things I was learning in real time. There have to be some things for yourself that are your own personal business. And unfortunately, in my case, things got a little bit outta control.

You’ve always been so unfiltered and unabashedly yourself. Now, the culture is finally catching up with you. Do you feel that way?

Not that I’m a pioneer, but sometimes it’s funny when I see these Halloween costumes or people using me on the mood boards at photo shoots and things, I’m like, Oh, my gosh. Back then, everyone was kind of making fun of me and I was just having a ball. I didn’t have a stylist, I didn’t have anybody. I was talking to Simon [Porte Jacquemus] when I was in Paris just a few weeks ago, and he said, “Please tell me who styled you for when you went to the MTV [VMAs].” I’m like, “Styled me? I don’t think any stylist would’ve let me walk out of the house that way. I just put that pink hat on, those sparkly pants, and a corset. It took me five minutes. Tommy did my makeup, and I was out the door. This was just pure fun.” And so Simon goes, “Oh, my gosh. I’m going to cry. I can’t believe you put that together all yourself. It was so inspirational for me.” I was like, “Are you serious?”  [Laughs.]

Your Jacquemus show appearance and campaign both lit up the internet when they dropped. How did it all come about, and what was it like working with Simon? 

It was just so much fun. Simon’s such a sweetheart. I used to be obsessed with that big, beautiful hat. So when Jacquemus called for me to do his campaign, I said, “Is that the guy with the hat?” And I was told, yes, it was, and I was like, Oh, my God. I did not realize his line of clothes was so gorgeous, all the white and creamy, dreamy everything. It was just incredible, and I thought it was funny that he wanted to do an homage to the crazy hats I used to wear.

When that Jacquemus campaign was released, there were cries for you to join The White Lotus next season. Have you watched the show?

I know it’s very popular, but no. I keep on calling it Wild Orchid, but that’s something else. [Laughs.] I think this is just a rumor, but I’ve had other people ask me that too, just friends from Europe going, “Are you going to be on?!” It sounds fun, but again, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I want to sit back and take a breath after all this comes out and stay quiet for a little bit but see what happens. Because I’ve had a few people come with a lot of different TV and film [ideas], and there’s a bunch of stuff percolating, but I don’t know what I’m going to do next. I may just stay home and knit sweaters. [Laughs.]

It was so fun seeing you go through your storage units of archival clothing in the documentary. When we last spoke, you talked about feeling the most yourself when you style yourself, of course. As people continue to obsess over your ’90s looks especially, how would you describe your personal style now? 

Now my style really is jeans and T-shirts. I’m very simple here, and when I can be, I’m just barefoot, so I’m running around like a little kid here. But I love to look through some of my clothes and see all these fun pieces I’ve collected over the years, and I bring a lot of it with me when I’m traveling. I’m just determined to style myself and throw things together, and it doesn’t have to make sense. I’m not a big trend follower. I don’t have any social media on my phone. I’m not following anything. There’s that E.E. Cummings quote. [“To be nobody-but-yourself—in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else—means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight.”] I have a lot of respect for Vogue and especially the history telling everybody what’s in style, but I don’t think I’ve ever been in style. And even Andreas [Kronthaler], Vivienne [Westwood]’s husband, he’s always said I was a difficult person to dress, like the clothes just repelled off me. But he also said Vivienne was a hard woman to dress. Vivienne had her own style.

We’re deeply sorry for your loss. As we continue to reflect on the life and legacy of Vivienne, I did want to ask about your special friendship. Why do you believe she’s such an important figure in fashion, the climate crisis, and beyond?

Vivienne saw something in me that reminded me of her. We were very kindred spirits. We both wanted to use what we had and our gifts to help the world. Our love of people and the planet are the same. And I think she was very brave, of course. I love that she just said it how it is. When you go to her shows, she has [show notes] about climate change but also about poetry and fairy tales. She felt fairy tales were important, and my grandfather raised me that way. When I met her, I started talking about her manifesto, and she just put her arms around me and said, “I don’t have to draw you a map. You get it.” I always used to joke that if Vivienne Westwood likes me, it doesn’t matter if the rest of the world likes me. She’s just a fantastic, unique person. In a world where everyone is so afraid of saying anything and it’s become so politically correct it’s kind of paralyzing out there, she would just let people have it. In honor of her, we have to keep the fight going.

You’ve spoken about how the last year has been a new beginning. From starring in Chicago to releasing your memoir and documentary, how else are you focusing on yourself, personally and professionally? How are you, as you put it in the documentary, “having a love affair” with yourself?

I’m standing at the edge of a cliff, and this book and documentary are about to come out. I don’t know what’s next, but all I have is 100% of me to give, and I hope that it inspires people. I hope that it helps somebody out there, and that’s worth it then. Right now, it’s exactly where I want to be. I feel free, open, and like something is just around the corner, but I have no idea what it is. It’s a lot of mystery. But then again, I love to live in the mystery and not know what’s coming next. And I feel like this is one of those times.