When Hulu premiered Pam & Tommy, the scripted TV series dredging up the most traumatic chapter of Pamela Anderson’s career, her name was notably absent from the production. She did not consent to or sign off on the series, meaning that, nearly 30 years after her and her then-husband Tommy Lee’s home movies were stolen and distributed to the tune of over £61 million in sales in its first year alone, according to Rolling Stone — not a dollar of which she says she received — more Hollywood forces were profiting from her stolen personal property and trauma. Anderson did not comment on the series either, but she makes her feelings about the project — and many more subjects, including her stolen tape, marriages, and media misconceptions — known in a forthcoming documentary from Emmy-nominated documentarian Ryan White (The Case Against 8, The Keepers). Titled Pamela, a love story, the unsparing documentary chronicles Pamela’s complicated journey from small-town Canadian to Playboy pinup to ’90s icon to unlikely Broadway star — plus all the romances in between.
Now, Netflix has released the first trailer for the new documentary, which will drop on 31 January. In the two-minute trailer, old clips of Pamela are shown mixed in with new interview footage.
“I blocked that stolen tape out of my life in order to survive,” Pamela says in a voiceover. “Now that it's all come up again, I feel sick. I want to take control of the narrative for the first time.”
As clips from her past play, Pamela adds that she didn't feel like she had a lot of respect when she was younger, and that she “had to make a career out of the pieces left”. “But I'm not the damsel in distress. I put myself in crazy situations and … [laughs] survived them,” she continues. "Some men think, ‘oh, she’s a Playboy thing or this sexual person'. And then they hate you for being something else. You have to be brave, and you've got to use what you've got. Why can't we be the heroes of our own life story? Maybe I just do all the interviews naked, there's no mystery here [laughs].”
In a blurb under the video, Netflix says: “In her own words, through personal video and diaries, Pamela Anderson shares the story of her rise to fame, rocky romances and infamous sex tape scandal. Pamela Anderson defined a decade. Now she will define herself.”
Ryan, the acclaimed filmmaker behind this year’s Good Night Oppy, a documentary about the Mars space rover, says he generally has little interest in making celebrity documentaries. “I feel like a lot of them are about brand management or selling a product, whatever that may be. And Pamela’s the opposite of that,” he says, revealing that the actor sat down with him for her interviews without makeup and answered his questions for hours on end. “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.’”
Pamela Anderson also gave the filmmaker decades’ worth of home movies and journals — chronicling her love life, career, and children’s coming-of-age — without even reviewing them first. “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 they filmed,” says White, referring to Pamela and Tommy. “There’s no calculation with how [Pamela] thinks about these types of things. It’s all just about being raw and honest, for better or worse. It made for a really emotional film and I’m really grateful that I got to work with someone like that.”
Ryan says that Pamela’s sons, Brandon, 26, and Dylan, 24, convinced her “to tell her story on her own terms. They adore their mother and really hate seeing her story being told by other people in a way that they don’t feel is authentic to who she is. Pamela, by nature, is an incredibly open and honest person. That’s perhaps why Pamela’s gotten burned a lot in her life, but I also think it’s what’s so lovable and infectious about her.”
Pamela has also confirmed, per Vanity Fair, that Brandon, who is a producer on the film and appears on camera, was especially integral to her decision to finally open up.
“Brandon can talk me into anything with his sincere heart and a fierceness that only a son could have,” she wrote. “He wanted to tell my story, authentically and without distortion.”
While filming the documentary, Pamela discovered that Hulu was making the scripted series about her and her ex-husband’s stolen tape, which incited a painful aftershock of trauma that played out onscreen in the new project. Speaking about her decision to discuss the stolen tape at length once and for all, she explains, “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.”
69 best Netflix documentaries that will shock, inspire and warm your heartsGallery69 PhotosOn camera, Pamela describes herself as a hopeless romantic, the quality that gives the documentary its title: Pamela, a love story.
“Pamela wears her heart on her sleeve — not just in relationships but in all things in her life,” says Ryan. “All of her husbands are a part of her story, so they’re in our film, including the most recent one. And no matter how many times it hasn’t worked out for her, she still is a hopeless romantic and looking for true love in every way.”
When Ryan began filming, he thought that the project would be about Pamela’s quiet life after leaving Hollywood, returning to the small Canadian town where she grew up, and marrying a local.
“I thought that’s what the documentary was going to be — looking back at Pamela’s crazy life from Vancouver Island,” says White. But over the course of filming, Anderson’s fifth marriage dissolved and the actor painfully confronted her relationship history on camera.
While filming, Pamela agreed to watch some of her home movies for the first time on camera — a compilation of videos featuring her at home with her young sons, her wedding to Kid Rock, and even her early days with Tommy Lee.
“We have this whole archive of Tommy and Pamela falling in love, and I think our film will really humanise them,” says White. “I think they’re often seen as these larger-than-life… maybe even cartoon characters. When you watch this footage of them meeting, it’s really beautiful.”
What began as a documentary portrait evolved into more of a journey film, Ryan says, when Pamela was cast as Roxie Hart in an eight-week run of Chicago at New York's Ambassador Theatre earlier this year. Pamela had been offered a role in the musical about a decade earlier, says Ryan, but passed on the opportunity because she wanted to be available for her sons.
“Pamela really put her career on the back burner to be a mother — especially after the stolen tape,” says Ryan, calling the Chicago role a huge milestone for the actor. Though the show’s rehearsals, which were captured on film, proved a great storyline, Ryan says he was initially terrified for the actor. “I was like, are you kidding me? You have six weeks to train for this. She’s so honest. She’s like, ‘I’m not a singer, I’m not a dancer, [but] I’m going to try.’ We got to watch her work her ass off and master that over six weeks. And I just remember on the opening night, my heart was beating so hard for her ’cause I was so nervous. [But] she just totally nailed it. I’ve never had such a proud moment with one of my subjects on a personal level as when that show ended and the curtain went down.”
“You can’t discount Pamela. She’s been discounted her whole life and she totally pulled it off,” says Ryan. “The film is called Pamela, a love story, and there are many love stories within it. Ultimately I think the end of the film is about her putting more of that love into herself.”
The documentary will coincide with Pamela’s HarperCollins memoir Love, Pamela, which will also be released 31 January and is a similarly candid confessional.
“Writing my book was therapy,” Pamela says. After giving so much of herself to the documentary, though, she isn’t especially anxious to see herself revisit her personal highs and lows onscreen. “The documentary I haven’t seen, 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.”
A version of this article originally appeared on Vanity Fair.
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