Understandably incensed that her passionate but emotionally scarring on-off relationship with Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee was mined as the source material for last year's unauthorised TV drama series Pam & Tommy, actress Pamela Anderson has entered 2023 on a mission to reclaim the narrative around her own life, via a newly-published autobiography, Love, Pamela and an engaging authorised documentary, Pamela, A Love Story, currently streaming on Netflix.
In the new documentary, the six-times married Canadian-born actress, known globally for her role as C.J. Parker in hit TV show Baywatch, refers to Lee as the love of her life, and claims that every subsequent romantic partner she has connected with since the couple divorced in 1998 has been jealous of the drummer, and of the close friendship shared by the pair, who have two children, sons Brandon and Dylan.
Anderson married rapper Kid Rock, aka Bob Ritchie, in July 2006, and filed for divorce just four months later, citing 'irreconcilable differences' between the pair. In Pamela, A Love Story, she admits that she and Ritchie "had fun together" and compliments the Detroit hip-hop star for the way he interacted with her boys, but admits, "but I didn't feel like this is love, because I have an impression of what live is, and this isn't it."
"We just didn't have that height, that frenzy that I was used to," she muses. "I didn't want anything less than that."
In an exclusive extract from her autobiography published on Rolling Stone magazine's website , Lee additionally reveals that, somewhat bizarrely, the catalyst for the couple's break-up, just as they were about to move into a new home in Point Dume, Malibu, was fictional Kazakhstani journalist Borat, the creation of English comedian/actor Sacha Baron Cohen. Or more specifically, it was the plot of the 2006 'mockumentary' Borat! Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, which sees Borat fall in love with 'C.J. Parker' after seeing an episode of Baywatch, and travel across America in the hope of wooing the fictional lifeguard.
The flashpoint between the newly-ish weds occurred when the couple attended a private premiere of the film, and Kid Rock flew into a rage at the mention of the infamous leaked sex tape his wife recorded with her former husband Lee.
"I didn’t tell Bob I was in the movie, because I wanted to surprise him," Anderson writes. "I forgot about the part in the film that referenced the 'sex tape.' Bob stormed out, calling me a whore and worse. He was embarrassed, and his reaction was not thought through.
She continues: "After I chased Bob to his car, he peeled out, leaving me there alone. I turned back and apologized, then asked if anyone could give me a ride home. When I walked in, Bob was smashing a photo on the wall. He said he was sick of waking up to a picture of me and David LaChapelle every day. But it wasn’t me and David - it was Marilyn Monroe and Bert Stern.
"We broke up," she concludes, adding. "I didn’t stay in touch with Bob."
