Pamela Anderson doesn't need redemption: “It was my boobs that had a run, I was just in the 'pack'”

Pamela Anderson inserts a VHS into the player and says mischievously: "God, that's scary, I hope I don't go out naked."

It is the first scene of his documentary

, which premieres on Netflix on January 31.

The actress refers to the sex tape of her with her then-partner, Tommy Lee, who destroyed her career, changed the internet and made her an icon, in the first minute of the 173-minute footage.

If there was an elephant in the room, it's clear from the start that the idea is to put it in a china shop.

The story is part of pop culture and has recently been reflected in the Hulu miniseries (broadcast in Spain on Disney+)

But now it is Anderson herself who wants to settle accounts with her past.

She will do it with

a mix between an autobiography and a book of poems that will go on sale in the United States this month.

But especially with the Netflix documentary, over which she has had complete control, since one of her two sons, Brandon Lee, is a producer.

More information

Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, the last rock couple turned into a fable about everything that we no longer accept today

This isn't necessarily a positive thing, at least not for the viewer.

In the documentary – to which this newspaper has already had access – Anderson offers a sweetened, friendly, almost idealized version of herself.

But she also makes him loosen up and delve into personal stories that range from the tragic (the rape she suffered at the age of 12, the abortion while filming

, and the assault by Tommy Lee and subsequent complaint of abuse) to the funny.

She has a sense of humor and knows how to laugh at everything, especially herself.

“Except for the hair dye, the boobs and the shoes, I am for real,” she says.

She is, or at least she appears to be in these images.

Pamela Anderson went from a small town in her native Canada to the covers—and the mansion—of

And she went from there to becoming the most famous lifeguard in history, thanks, since 1992, to

With hardly any experience, it became the main claim of a series that bet more on the physique of its protagonists than on the scripts.

Anderson herself is quite aware and does not intend to claim her legacy.

For this reason, when she remembers it, she drops pearls like: “I don't know if she was a good actress, she didn't know what she was doing.

The director would tell us: 'Pretend it's real.

Action!"

or “If a scene didn't work they would say: 'More seagulls' and someone would throw cookies”.

Even so, she remembers it as a fun and exhilarating experience.

He spent the day at the beach.

She earned a lot of money.

She dated fellow co-stars David Charvet and Kelly Slater.

Pamela Anderson with a couple of seagulls during the filming of the series 'Baywatch'. James Aylott (Getty Images)

In all her scenes she came out with a tiny swimsuit, in all the interviews they asked her about her breasts.

"I always say that it was my boobs that had a career, I was just in the

," the actress now jokes.

Pamela Anderson was sex.

Or at least an oxygenated, plastic, depilated and satin version of it.

The kind of sex that she doesn't smell and doesn't stain.

The kind of sex she sells.

She until a home video was leaked in which she was seen having relations with who she was then her husband, the rocker Tommy Lee.

It was actual sex.

The kind of sex that sinks a career.

According to

, which published the definitive story on the tape in 2014, it was a disgruntled bricklayer who robbed the couple's safe and upon discovering the video tried to profit.

These details are omitted from the documentary.

At first, Anderson and Lee denounced (their lawyer was the boss of the famous Erin Brockovich) but, tired of the media exposure and the parallel trial, they ended up reaching an agreement: they stopped the possibility of anyone selling the physical tape, but in exchange they could do it on the internet.

It was 1995 and nobody knew the potential of the network.

estimates

, this material made adult websites and distributors about $77 million in its first 12 months.

Only in legal sales.

Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee claim not to have seen a penny.

It was the first viral video in history, it redefined the way sex was consumed, ruling magazines and DVDs and turning the internet into the new oasis of porn.

There were other videos later (those of Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian or Colin Farrell, without going any further) but none had the social impact of Pamela and Tommy Lee.

The legal and privacy ramifications of the case remain chilling decades later.

For the press, he became a rock star with a crazy life and a huge penis.

She, in a whore.

Pamela Anderson fell out of favor and became, as she herself explains, “a

joke , a cartoon character, a caricature”.

Her fame washed over her, she did not know how to manage her fortune and after a few years she ended up ruined.

“I'm not good with money.

I just want my credit card to work and to be able to do my nails, ”she acknowledges in the documentary.

Over the years, the actress has become an environmental activist.

And last year she starred in the musical

on Broadway to rave reviews.

These two details are used in the documentary with thunderously emotional music to underline the

that she likes so much in Hollywood, the final redemption of Pamela Anderson, who has gone from being a slut to a serious and committed actress.

Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson in a file photo. Denise Truscello (WireImage)

There has been a tendency in recent years to document the turbulent stages of women who have fallen from grace, to offer them a chance at redemption—from their alcoholism, their mental problems, or their loose nature—as long as it is public.

Perhaps because it is not them, but society that needs a pardon, or at least a justification;

a recreation of the social context that explains why we participate in the circus and makes us indulgently conclude: “You have to see it!

How much we have changed!"

It happened posthumously with the terrible documentary about Amy Winehouse (

, 2015).

With the one that was made on the legal guardianship of Britney Spears (

2021).

And it happens now with Pamela Anderson.

Pamela Anderson turned grown men into horny teenage versions of themselves.

Larry King asked her about her tits on CNN.

Jay Leno (a self-confessed model on whom Pablo Motos was based to create

) used her as a recurring joke when she was not there or as a sexy guest to whom he made risqué jokes when he was in front of her.

In the documentary she can be seen repeatedly in scenes that have aged really badly.

So no one raised their voices.

Everybody laughed funny.

Even Anderson.

She entered the game.

She objectified herself as a form of female empowerment, she explains.

“It was the first time I felt free,” she says of her 1989 debut in

She did it 13 more times, becoming the woman who has starred in the most magazine covers in her history.

She spoke naturally about her operations, her nudity, and her relationship with sex.

But that didn't stop it.

She magnified it.

She was seen talking about her tits over and over again.

She “thought: “really?

Is this what we're talking about again?

But I played along.

I was very naive."

Pamela and the men

Pamela Anderson, a love story

also talks about her relationship with men.

And to understand it, it takes us back to her past.

Before she was a sexual icon, she was a traumatized child.

There are three stories that mark her childhood and adolescence.

The first has overtones of magical realism.

Anderson talks about how she plotted revenge on an abusive babysitter.

“I tried to kill her by stabbing her through the heart with a candy cane,” explains the actress, who seems, at that point, to be telling a tale of herself.

She didn't make it, but she put a curse on him that worked: “I told her I wish she died and she died the next day in a car accident.

I thought it was my fault."

Anderson also tells of a boyfriend who threw her out of a speeding car, ending her in a ditch.

This would be the first of a series of stormy relationships with men.

But the most traumatic story is that of her first sexual experience.

"He was 25, I was 12. He raped me," she explains.

“I thought it was my fault.

My mother was always crying for my father, she didn't want to hurt him anymore.

So I didn't tell her or anyone."

Pamela Anderson and her sons Dylan and Brandon Lee.GETTY

His father was a poker player and chimney sweep, as well as an alcoholic.

He broke up and reconciled with his mother a million times.

She used to tell Pamela: “I am a bad example, your father is a jerk but I love him.

You don't love those idiots, they don't love you the way your father loves me either.

Get rid of them."

She ignored him.

Pamela has been divorced five times, the last time during the filming of this documentary.

In it, he lists all these relationships and steps down the aisle and the court with humor and irony.

Especially memorable is her summary of her marriage to Rick Salomon, professional poker player (like her father) and addict.

“It turned out to be a drug addict, we found a crack pipe under the Christmas tree.

He keeps denying it was his, but who's going to hide a crack pipe in our Christmas tree?

I didn't go,” Anderson says.

After reviewing all his stories, he makes it clear that Tommy Lee has been the great love of his life.

“I think I'd rather be alone than not be with the father of my children.

It is impossible to be with anyone else.

But it's impossible to be with Tommy either, it's almost like a punishment, ”she muses.

The romance began with an evening of champagne and ecstasy in Cancun, Mexico.

They both ended up so stoned that they spent the night making out and planning their wedding.

They were married four days later, in a bathing suit, on the beach.

“I was dating [

star] Kelly Slater .

She had agreed that when she got back from Cancun she would go to Florida to visit her family, so when I called her to tell her that I had gotten married, she was like: 'Whaaaat?

The story ended with a complaint for ill-treatment and Tommy Lee in jail, where he spent six months for kicking his wife at the time.

Anderson was blunt: he denounced and disappeared.

He took his mother's advice and got rid of Tommy Lee.

He later married a few more times.

And the ones that remain.

"He loves to get married, perhaps his favorite thing in the world is to fall in love," says her son in the documentary.

"And I guess he likes the idea of ​​falling out of love, too."