REAL ME
Pamela Anderson explains her new look and why she’s rejecting ‘cartoon character’ Playboy image for ‘true self’
Pamela has opted for makeup-free looks for recent red carpet events
PAMELA Anderson is shedding her Playboy image, the Baywatch actress has revealed.
The 57-year-old Hollywood star explained she's distancing herself from the "cartoon character that I'd created" during her early years in the industry, in a recent interview with Better Homes & Garden.
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Asked about her recent carpet appearances, where Pamela has been photographed without any makeup, the mother-of-two said that embracing her natural look was a conscious decision.
"That was the beginning of me letting go of the image I had always had of myself," she told the magazine. "What is this cartoon character that I’d created? OK, that was fun. But I’m not that person anymore.
"It was a dance I was doing that I was only partly aware of," Pamela continued. "And looking back, I can see why I did it. But I've always been into being a homemaker too."
She credited the transformation to her two sons, Brandon Thomas Lee and Dylan Jagger Lee, explaining how her public perception "hurt" them during their childhood.
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"All the kids were always at our house," Pamela said. "I cooked for everybody, pots of spaghetti for the neighborhood, and so my kids have always seen that part of me.
"And it hurt them to think that those other things are the only things people think of their mom.
"Yes, she's been in Playboy. Yes, she's done all these things, but we know who she is. It's different now," she affirmed.
Pamela is promoting her new cookbook, I Love You, out in October 2024. She is also filming for a reboot of The Naked Gun, co-starring with Liam Neeson.
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Asked what inspired the cookbook, Pamela said it began as a "housewarming gift for my sons."
"I've taken a lot of my family recipes that come from my parents' Northern and Eastern European background. A lot of probiotics and cabbage rolls and soups and pickled things."
Pamela Anderson, 56, looks completely different as Baywatch star goes makeup free in mini skirt during NYC outing
Pamela's great-grandfather was a Finnish native, who immigrated to Canada in 1908.
Meanwhile, her German great-grandmother was born in Russia and relocated to Canada in 1901.
Elsewhere in the interview, the actress reflected on relocating back to her childhood home in British Columbia, Vancouver, when Covid-19 sent the world into lockdown, adding, "I felt like I had really screwed up."
"I was not in a good space when I moved back to Canada," Pamela admitted. "I don't know what happened over the last few decades, but I feel now so far removed from the image of who I was.
That was the beginning of me letting go of the image I had always had of myself. What is this cartoon character that I’d created? OK, that was fun. But I’m not that person anymore.
Pamela Anderson
"I felt very sad and lonely. I didn't feel just misunderstood. I felt like I had really screwed up, that my whole life was a bundle of mistakes," she continued.
"I was hard on myself, and I thought I put my family through a lot and put my kids through so much."
'NOT GOING TO WATCH THIS'
Pamela, who has steadily disassembled her sex icon image over the years, released her autobiography Love, Pamela last year and the Netflix documentary Pamela, A Love Story, on the same day last year.
With them, Pamela was reclaiming the narrative of her life, especially in the aftermath of Pam & Tommy - the Hulu series about the theft of Pamela and then-husband Tommy Lee's sex tape.
Pamela has spoken out against the limited series, starring Lily James and Sebastian Stan in the lead roles, on several occasions.
Speaking to Variety in January 2023, Pamela said that while she has "nothing against" Lily, she believes the show's producers "still owe me a public apology."
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Her reaction to a dramatized retelling of the scandal was captured on the Netflix docuseries Pamela, A Love Story.
"It really gives me nightmares," she said in a clip. "I didn't sleep last night at all. I have no desire to watch it. I'm not going to watch it. Never watched the tape, I'm not going to watch this."
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