Pamela Anderson is ready to tell her own story.
Details about her authorized Netflix documentary, Pamela, A Love Story, are being revealed by Vanity Fair. The project, announced in March on the heels of Hulu’s biographical series Pam & Tommy, comes out Jan. 31, but it’s been in the works for years and features decades of her personal movies and journals. The doc will hit the same day as her memoir Love, Pamela.
Among the things we’ve learned about the film project, helmed by Emmy-nominated documentarian Ryan White (The Case Against 8), are…
Her sons convinced her to do it
Brandon and Dylan Lee, whom the Baywatch alum, 55, shares with first husband Tommy Lee, encouraged their mom “to tell her story on her own terms” after seeing people tell it for her “in a way that they don’t feel is authentic to who she is,” White said. Brandon, who serves as a producer for Pamela: A Love Story and appears on camera, was crucial in getting Pam to open up. She told VF that her elder son “can talk me into anything with his sincere heart and a fierceness that only a son could have. He wanted to tell my story, authentically and without distortion.”
She turned over decades of home movies and journals for the project
The Playboy model gave complete access to her personal videos and journals — documenting her headline-making love life, career and her family moments with her sons — without even reviewing them.
“The infamous stolen tape, which we’re always very careful to call ‘the stolen tape’ and not ‘sex tape,’ was just one of hundreds of hours that [she and Tommy] filmed,” said White, who said the movie sees Pam — who sat for her interviews with him sans makeup — “being raw and honest, for better or worse… From the very beginning, she was like, ‘You can ask me anything. I will talk about anything. I will be nothing but honest with you about it all.'”
While filming, Pam watched some home movies for the first time on camera, including of her wedding to Kid Rock (aboard a yacht in St. Tropez) and early days with Tommy. White said of the footage of Pam and Tommy falling in love, “I think our film will really humanize them… They’re often seen as these larger-than-life … maybe even cartoon characters.” The footage of them meeting is actually “really beautiful.”
All of her ex-husbands are in the doc
The VIP star married five men — Tommy (1995-1998), Rock (2006-2007), Rick Salomon (2007-2008) and (2014-2015), Jon Peters (2020-2020) and Dan Hayhurst (2020-2022) — and they all participate in the project. “All of her husbands are a part of her story, so they’re in our film, including the most recent one,” White said.
She talks about the stolen sex tape
This documentary has been in the works for several years and while making it, she learned about the Hulu series about her and Tommy’s stolen tape. White said it triggered a painful aftershock of trauma that plays out within this new doc, and she uses the film to discuss the impact of the tape being stolen and released once publicly and for all.
“Nobody knew the truth — even I don’t know 100% of what happened, but I think what is most important is to share my human feelings and how much it hurt and how it undeniably defined me moving forward — in my career and my relationships,” Pam said.
Pam has no intention of watching the doc
“The documentary I haven’t seen,” she revealed, “and I have no intention of seeing. I gave full access to my archives and diaries, and I hope that through full transparency, it makes sense to somebody.”
She’s still on a quest for love, but practiced self-love while making this project
Over the course of making the film, Pam’s fifth marriage ended and it led to her confronting her relationship history for the project. The filmmaker described Pam as a “hopeless romantic” in search of “true love,” and she agreed, saying, “I’m a romantic, and romance is tragedy. I believe in fairy tales.”
White said there are “many love stories” within the film but, “Ultimately I think the end of the film is about her putting more of that love into herself.”
On the same day Pamela, A Love Story is released, her memoir, published by HarperCollins, will come out as well.
“Writing my book was therapy,” Pam said.
In October, Pam told People magazine that the book is about everything she’s gone through. “These are all my feelings, about my life — no ‘Woe is me,’ though some times were tough, I made it through and had to find love in grace and dignity mixed with humor, acceptance, and forgiveness,” she said.
