Baywatch actress Pamela Anderson says she’s loving life again after returning to the big screen
Pamela Anderson is relishing her second chance at acting after making peace with her past. Now 57, Pammy – who rose to fame in the early 1990s as Baywatch lifeguard CJ Parker – is living life on her own terms.
And after five marriages, that includes enjoying being single for now. “I’m just trying to live this part of my life as authentically as possible,” she says. “I feel like because I’ve been given this second chance, I get to do it my way. If anyone comes into my life, I have to trust it won’t interfere with my shot.”
It’s a new era for former Playboy model Pamela, who is loving her acting renaissance after retreating from the spotlight following her sex tape scandal. It saw the private movie she made with then husband, rocker Tommy Lee Jones, stolen and leaked to the in 1995.
READ MORE: Kate Moss, 51, copies Pamela Anderson, 57, and ditches makeup for huge event
“I knew that I had more to give, but I thought, ‘Oh well, not in this lifetime, I guess,’ because of what had happened in my personal life and my career,” the star said of the devastating saga. “I thought, ‘I’ll just do what I have to do to keep the lights on and be with my kids.’”
She opened up about the difficulty she felt shielding her sons Brandon, 29, and Dylan, 27, from the aftermath. Pamela recalled: “I would pick them up from surf camp and they’d be like, ‘Are you Pamela Anderson? What is that? The kids are saying all these things about you, Mom.’
“You want to share things with your children age-appropriately, but they always found out before. I mean, what could be worse than what happened to their father and me?”
Moving away from the showbiz world, Pamela now enjoys a quieter life on Vancouver Island. “I wanted to remember who I was, so I went back to where the trees have known me since birth,” explained Pamela.
“I rewrote my life and literally replanted my garden to see what would grow. I thought, ‘I’m going to make pickles and jams, and I can be perfectly happy here.’ Sometimes when you think it’s the end, it’s really the beginning. That’s what it was for me.”
A Broadway role as Roxie Hart in musical Chicago brought Pamela back into the spotlight. “That just opened me up again,” she said. Recently starring in acclaimed movie The Last Showgirl, she features in upcoming comedy The Naked Gun alongside Liam Neeson, 73.
“It’s going to show a different side of me,” she teased. “I feel every film I do lately is healing various parts of me. And you need a big, messy life to draw from if you want to make these kinds of things interesting.”
Since her return, Pammy has gone without make-up. She says she’s always been a “rebel” as she pushes back against beauty conventions. The actress says she’s “surrendering” to ageing as she proudly walks red carpets with no make up on.
“I think that with AI technology and filters, people are becoming kind of boring-looking,” she explained. “I want to challenge beauty norms. I’ve always been a rebel. I never see somebody and think, ‘I want to look like that.’
“I just want to see who I am. At some point you have to say, ‘This is all I’ve got’. Surrender to it. And it’s real happiness. It’s freedom to know you can walk on a red carpet without a stitch of make-up on. I mean, why can’t I? Men do it all the time.”
The July/August issue of Harper’s Bazaar UK is on sale now or read the full interview online here.
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