Pamela Anderson - ‘It wasn’t about being pretty, it was about being brave’

0:01Just to note before we get started that abuse is mentioned in this episode.

0:10Hello and welcome to How to Fail. For those that are new here, this is the podcast that looks at how failure has shaped our lives and what, if anything, we have learned from those failures. I have a very special episode for you today in partnership with the Dove Self-Esteem Project. The Dove Self-Esteem Project is an amazing initiative supported by science-backed methodology that we can all introduce into our lives to help us improve our relationship with our bodies. And I'll be sharing some of these exercises a little later on in the episode. I could not be more excited about my guest today, the iconic Pamela Anderson.

0:52She's brought three failures or lessons learned, as she doesn't like the word failure. And as you know, neither do I. And we'll be taking a look at how the 2000s were a seminal decade, but one that might also have taken its toll on our self-esteem. I do hope you enjoy this episode with Pamela. Every so often on How to Fail, I get to interview someone who defines a cultural epoch. Pamela Anderson is one of those women. She was born in Canada to a repairman father and waitress mother. At the age of 21, she was featured by chance on a stadium screen at a local football game. That moment led to a modelling contract and later the first of many offers from Playboy.

1:37Acting was her next step. In the 90s, she gained global recognition as CJ Parker in the TV series Baywatch. Posters of Anderson in the famed red swimsuit adorned many a teenager's wall and she became the absolute embodiment of a specific, sexy, blonde beauty. Film roles followed, including the lead in 1996's Barb Wire. Along the way, she had two beloved sons and became a vocal advocate for the animal rights organization, PETA. But the second act of her career has been her most powerful. In 2022, her turn as Roxy Hart in Chicago on Broadway attracted sellout audiences. A year later, a Netflix documentary produced and directed by her eldest son foregrounded Anderson's vulnerability and honesty as she reclaimed her narrative.

2:29Her recent performance in The Last Showgirl received widespread critical acclaim, as well as a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. And she has become the unwitting spokeswoman for a new kind of bodily freedom, appearing at red carpet events and on fashion front rows entirely makeup free. It shouldn't be radical, and yet it is. And it's a radicalism that comes from Anderson's own desire to continue discovering her true nature, stripping back the layers and embracing self-acceptance. I think instead of trying to be this polished person, I'd rather be raw, she says. Ten years ago, I felt like a failure.

3:13I'm definitely much happier now. Pamela Anderson, welcome to How to Fail. How to Fail with Grace and Dignity. Exactly that. But I mean, you can't call it failure is a funny word. We need to rebrand it. And that's what this podcast is all about. Right. I firmly believe that failures are lessons wrapped up in mistakes. And I think you do too. Yes. Yes. I mean, it's fun to fail. I mean, we have to, to learn. That's what makes us interesting. Yes. Well, you are fascinating. And I wanted to end on that idea that there's been this pivotal shift in your career. and it's happened in your 50s. How have your 50s felt to you?

3:57I, well, I mean, I thought I was retired. I went to my garden. I thought, well, I guess that's what the world is going to think of me. And I really was disappointed in a way thinking I never really was going to be able to reach what I thought would be my full potential. I've always kind of been carrying the secret that I could do more, but you, this business is a funny has a funny way about it and so I went into my garden I thought well that's okay that's okay and I actually got to do Broadway so I thought from Baywatch to Broadway I can live with that but to get this opportunity to come back in and to be able to play in the last show girl and to for Gia to see the documentary which my son produced it's just Gia Coppola and it's just it's a happy surprise and so I feel like not too many people get second chances like this and especially in this industry so I'm making the most of it and I just kind of want to see what I'm made of and it feels very surreal to even hear you introduce me the way you did because I still have this connotation when I hear my name I picture that girl in the red bathing suit or you know the marriages or the just the personal part of it so if I feel that way I'm sure many people feel that way I mean not that it's um the top of anybody's list of things to think about but I I have a hard time shaking that image of myself too it's been a funny kind of excavation in these last few years is to remember who I am and what are my original thoughts what are my dreams and desires?

5:32And how do I go about round two with all the lessons that I learned the first time around and thinking, I just don't want to fall into the same trappings. I can't wait to get deeper into this with you because that is so powerfully expressed. And you said there, not that it's uppermost to people's minds to think about, but I actually think for so many women, they really relate to that sense of excavation of their true selfhood because so many of us have lived under these sort of socially conditioned rules and expectations. And I think there's something so powerful about what you're doing because you're partnering with the Dove Self Esteem Project on this episode to open up these kinds of conversations to a wider audience.

6:16And I wonder what it was that drew you to this particular kind of work. I mean, I get people coming up to me on the street, you know, the grocery store on the plane and really loving this choice that I've made. So I feel like it is resonating and it's something I want to explore deeper too, even for myself, because, you know, I'm a, I'm a rebel. I'm always challenging things. I'm always doing the opposite of what people tell me to do. I don't know. I just have that in me. And so I want to work with people that are, have the same concerns. we have these generational habits you know the way that we're brought up even and kind of just these things stick in our head so I want to break free of that like I feel like this is a little bit of a rebel move is to be who you want to be like what is beauty beauty is subjective and we don't have to look like the covers of magazines we don't have to do the industry standard which everybody was so horrified when I decided I didn't need a glam team for certain events.

7:18You know, I'd rather go look at architecture at the museum when I was in Paris. I thought, you know, who's looking at me? I'm clothed from head to toe with these big hats and, you know, this much of my face is sticking out. Is anyone going to really fall over backwards if I'm not wearing makeup? And that's where it started at Paris Fashion Week. And it just sent everybody scrambling around me thinking, no, this is not what people do. And I said, well, that even gives me more reason to do it. And not that it was, you know, world peace or anything, But it was just me challenging myself, thinking, why am I sitting in a makeup chair for three hours when, you know, I'm not trying to be the prettiest girl in the room.

7:55I'm, you know, I'm going to a fashion show. No one's looking at me. Like, what am I? And even if they were, why am I doing this? Because this just seems like a habit. And not that I'm opposed to makeup because I love getting dressed up and glammed up. I just felt like it was time to, I had nothing to lose. and I felt I'm not trying to create a persona right now. I'm not trying to be famous. I need to use my position to experiment and open up conversations. My sons have young women in their lives and I have nieces and I've had stepdaughters and I've seen how this social media craze has really created a bit of depression in women, how they don't look like their Instagram photos.

8:44when they look in the mirror. And how does that feel? And we didn't grow up with that. We grew up with other things, other challenges, but this is, I think is a real, it's a big challenge. And I have to catch myself too. I'll see a picture of myself where I go, oh, you know, I look terrible. And then I have to go, no, that's how I look. And that's okay. That's okay. Yes. You did that actually on a briefing call that we had for this podcast. And there was this glorious photo of you looking beautiful. And you said, oh, I hate that photo and it was so relatable because then a photo came up of me and I was like I hate that photo we're so harsh on ourselves we are we're our own worst critics and I was painfully shy as a young girl I had a great imagination I knew how to be other people from very early on you know it was a survival mechanism I think acting is a survival mechanism I think that I really want to know who I am.

9:39And I'm just discovering that now. I had just a really fun aunt that was bedazzled head to toe. My auntie Vi was just wonderful. And my mom was the bombshell, you know, with the bouffant and the gardening gloves and the rolled up jeans. And the, you know, she always told stories about how she couldn't afford to eat when she was younger, but she could afford to get her hair done. And she always said, if you're pretty, you're more powerful. And she would always, like, she hates this time right now for me. She's like, can you just put an eye on anything before you walk out the door, comb your hair, you know, show your figure, you know, what are you doing?

10:13And she just can't understand that this is really important to me. It's not that I'm letting myself go. I'm not, you know, I don't feel like I look like a mess when I walk out the door. I just, I'm just peeling it back to see who I am. It's just, it's just starting position. I don't know what my next incarnation is, but it's not going to be what my mother tells me to do. Well, we're going to come on to your mother as one of your failures, your first failure, in fact. But before we do, I do have lots of serious, deep questions. But before we get on to them, do you still have your red swimsuit from Baywatch?

10:47I do have one. Okay. Yeah, I have one at home. I have a little bit of everything. It's funny, I didn't think I saved everything, but I guess I'm a little bit of a pack rat. Otherwise, my son could have never, you know, made that documentary. documentary I told him I said I didn't save anything and he's like and then we opened up all the storage and it was like I saved everything it was such a great documentary and it must have been so special making it with your son well I mean he just used what was out there I mean I had a couple interviews um but it was it was him he put it all together and he said it was kind of like finding out about his life in reverse like he really could understand me better it was almost more healing for him and Dylan, Brandon and Dylan.

11:29I can't get through it. I've seen little bits of it. They wanted to do a screening for me. I couldn't watch it. I just feel like it's, um, it's sentimental. Obviously it's hard to watch yourself and your life, but there were parts of it that I just started crying and I thought, okay, I'm not doing this to myself. Live in the present. Live in the present. And as you were saying there, there's something so powerful about allowing your image to be out there and knowing that it's not the whole truth of you? Well, I think especially in the UK, let's just say tabloid culture. There was a point in my career where, in my life and in my personal life, where I just couldn't have any of that around me.

12:13I didn't have publicists back in the day. I didn't have a team around me that was, you know, making sure things were correct. And I wasn't, and I just found that I couldn't look. I felt so far removed from that image that I just gave up. And it was disappointing because there were times where people would tell me, you know, you belong to the world. You have no right to privacy. You're a public figure. And I'd say, yes, but it doesn't need to be correct. Basically, people can steal from you. They can say these things about you and there's no way to fight back. And, you know, I know I fed into it along the way too.

12:54So, I mean, looking back in hindsight, I would have done some things differently, but I needed the life experience to make that decision and the clarity too. I'm just glad I'm at this point. Let's just put it that way. We are too. Let's get into your failures or your lessons. Okay. Lessons. The first one, it links to what you said your mother told you about being pretty, equating to feeling more powerful. And it's your failure to separate beauty from worth. So I'm so interested in your mother and your earliest memories of beauty and what it meant to you and to her. Can you tell us about some of them?

13:35Well, I was a tomboy. I was, you know, making mud pies and climbing trees and, and you know I was the opposite and I think that's what God does right my mom she wanted a pretty little princess and I never felt pretty or beautiful or and I was very very shy and she was beautiful a bombshell my dad was the bad boy I mean you kind of don't have to look too far into that and see how things unfolded, you know, subconsciously for me. But she put a lot of emphasis on that. And in a way she was kind of joking, but not joking. And I think it was just of the times. Now it's a different kind of pressure.

14:20People think, you know, the 90s were so toxic, but I mean, every generation faced beauty challenges and myths and ideals that were impossible. If it was, you know, funny or being seductive or how to be sexy or how to get what you want or how to, you know, manipulate people in our lives using beauty. I just felt it was, it wasn't making her happy. She wasn't in a happy relationship. She was in, I didn't see how her way of doing things created peace and happiness and tranquility in her life. It just, it was chaos. And when we look at relationships when we're young and we think about, you know, abuse in the home, as women, we blame our mothers for staying in it, for learning how to manipulate it.

15:14Like, don't tell them how much this costs. Don't tell them that we got this. Don't tell them, you know, we got to make sure we compartmentalize. Like, don't tell them that we were here. Like you just learn that very young. And I just always never felt good because I have always been honest to a fault. And so that was our differences. I knew very early on when I experienced abuse when I was young, I didn't tell anybody and it was by a woman. So I've had really bizarre female experiences from a very young age. and to break the cycle takes a very brave person and so that's what I try to encourage even in my kids I just had a conversation recently with my son and said you're breaking the cycle it's not a it's not an easy place to be it's easy to fall into what you see around you or what you've you witnessed and I think that no this is the time you're hitting a crossroads it's you have which way you're going to go yeah and I find I've hit so many crossroads in my life even as a child where I had to make decisions and it all adds up it does and I think there's so much there and before I get into it I just want to say I want to acknowledge what you said there about having been abused by a woman at a young age and I'm so sorry that happened to you and I think there are so many complicated and very nuanced threads there because you're right that as a child we see often what our parents do and we know that it's not necessarily making them happy and yet at the same time we want to please them by doing the things that they're telling us to do so I imagine that there's this whole embroidery of what your mother's saying about prettiness and power and what you're experiencing about your own prettiness and how then that's confused with sexuality before you were ready.

17:16And all of that is quite a heady brew. And I wonder how you felt about your own beauty at a young age. Were you aware of it? I didn't think so. I didn't think about beauty per se, but I knew that I was a girl. I knew I was vulnerable um I remember this woman too she would bring me Barbies and bring me like a Barbie head to do the hair and to do the things and so I don't know I just wasn't interested in Barbies or dolls or and it kind of became something I really repelled against so to in hindsight look back and see my career and to see how things unfolded and to see how people looked at me in a certain way It was painful because it brought up things for me from my childhood too.

18:09So I just learned how to keep going, numb out, you know, figure out ways to get through it. And I mean, it's hard to be really aware as a child. I mean, you're just not equipped. You don't have the tools and you're not seeing the tools. I mean, my mom and dad were 17 and 19 when they had me too. So they were very young. And, you know, I look back and I think, you know, we were all just a bunch of kids. Later on in my career, when being on Baywatch, you know, they wanted me to be like natural on the beach, no makeup. And I was like, no, I want to be a playboy playmate on the beach. I want to have my, you know, wonderful makeup artist do my makeup and swim underwater with eyelashes and be kind of, you know, the bombshell on the beach.

19:01and it was being again rebellious because they wanted me to do one thing I wanted to do another I know how to create characters I know how to embody characters and that's what I love about being an actress is being able to take a lot of your pain and a lot of your challenges and work them out in another character and to be able to express yourself that you can't express yourself in words or therapy or your best friend, but you can express yourself in an acting class or as an actress. I just think that's how I was doing it. It's interesting to look back and see that. It's fascinating. And what did your mother make of you being spotted at this football game and then being flown to LA, having this modeling contract with a beer company, ending up on the cover of Playboy multiple times.

19:54Was your mother excited about that? Well, Playboy called me when I was in Vancouver still. And I called my mom and she said, I'd do it. She goes, if they asked me, I would do it. And she said, I want you to get out of this town. I want you to live your life. Like, you know, go baby, you know, see where this takes you. And I'd never been on a plane before. And so I just didn't know what to expect landing in Los Angeles. I thought everybody would have parrots on their shoulders. I don't know where I got that from watching too much Fellini as a young kid. But it was, you know, going straight to the Playboy Mansion and, and also at the Playboy Mansion, seeing so many beautiful women of all shapes and sizes and different hair colors.

20:36And it was different back then too. In the nineties, I think everybody wanted to be individuals. And I think now it's more about being the same, but I was so shy. I just wanted to break out of my shyness. And I did, I guess you could say in a big way. I seem to do challenge myself in very interesting ways, but that was one of the things I just, I felt like the first flash of photography, it was just a Playboy cover. It was not nudity, but it was very low jacket that I was holding shut. I felt like I was falling off a building. I felt like I'm free and I know that sounds you know crazy but it was it was freedom it was I'm somebody else I'm going to be what this version of what a playboy playmate would be or you know an actress or because it was so far removed from my reality that it none of it felt real but I felt freedom and I felt you know less and less shy and that was my goal and I am shy I'm still shy but not paralyzingly shy as I was.

21:44So this idea of being pretty, meaning you can be powerful, in a way, there's a sort of tension because you didn't agree with it, but it also did help you feel empowered in many ways. But again, even in Playboy, I didn't feel pretty. I felt like I was it was about sharing my heart about sharing my soul about expressing myself I think that obviously there's so much more to people than you know meets the eye it was deeper than that it was my shyness came from abuse my shyness came from my self-esteem being so low and me taking my power back was you know I didn't know how I was going to do it as a young kid I wasn't thinking I was going to be on the covers of magazines or in the public eye.

22:38I had a great, wonderful grandfather who was very much into mythology and fairy tales and really helped me cultivate my imagination. And I read a lot of books and that helped me. But this was my way of of dealing with it it wasn't about look at me I'm pretty it was I'm brave I'm I'm able to be in front of people and and and you know walk into a room with confidence those were the things that I was challenged with and what I and how I overcame that part of me you mentioned before we starts recording that your parents live with you in a cabin on your property so how is that how is your mother finding this incarnation of her daughter well they've always been supportive and what I love about my parents is they never taught me how to think they never taught me what to believe they've always just been supportive of everything I've done except for my first marriage they weren't that supportive but they got over that too I know people say to me and then you move your parents onto your property?

23:46I said, but I bought my grandparents' farm and my parents actually lived on the farm when they had me. They lived in cabin six. And so I created that cabin again for them to move back into. And I rewrote my history and my childhood. And so I wanted to go back to where the trees knew me since birth. And I felt like I can go back and I can redo this. and I did and that's and I get along great with my mother in the garden and that's our happy place you know and I don't have to have a perfect relationship with anybody but I do love that we have that time that we can go talk about the vegetables or the flowers that blooming and now every time we talk to each other on the phone she's telling me you know what she's harvesting in what she's doing and so that's our our place but she's still even if she saw this interview she would say your hair really she's very it's all about the hair it doesn't matter what I say in an interview or what I've done but she's always said don't touch your hair or you should have wore you know brighter lipstick or I mean it's just who she is you've said in the past you're not ready to go gray because that would just be one step too far for your mother uh but I have let myself go a little bit gray but i've also just i i've since i did the last show girl i've done three films i did you know the naked gun which comes out august 1st but i also did um rose bush pruning with this incredible director kareem and my hair is gray how did i play a mother i love it i mean i love this is what um i find fun about beauty is playing characters and i love i think it's funny that people thought at the met that i wore a wig i was like no i commit.

25:34I don't wear wigs. I'm going to wear a wig when I'm doing a play this summer, when I'm playing Marguerite and Camino Real, because there has to be long, cascading hair. And so I'll just put my hair up and I won't bother colouring it, see what happens. I'll make that decision when I take the wig off. Camino Real, which you mentioned there, is a Tennessee Williams play, and I just cannot wait to see you as a Tennessee Williams heroine. But I adore this idea of being playful, because you described yourself as a rebel when we first started talking, and that kind of rebellion against societal convention is so empowering.

26:08And we were chatting about the fact that we both have bobs now. Yes, I love that. I know. I love your hair. I love your hair. Thank you so much. And we both have a natural wave and I think it works well in the bob. And for years, I was told by romantic partners, but also by society, that women should have longer hair to be desirable. And actually cutting my hair was my small act of saying no to that. And I love it because it feels so much more me. Well, I had a pixie cut not too long ago and I was in a relationship and he actually took my hair and cut it. Boom. And I said, okay, well, I'm going for a pixie cut now.

26:45And I wasn't ready for it back then. And I'm not worried about what a romantic partner thinks of me at this point, which is freedom. Like, I don't think I could have this career right now if I had, I mean, a lot of my, I say a lot of my husbands, that sounds terrible. It sounds so chic. I've had husbands, but they're very, you know, jealous or, uh, and I always some people pleasing and my life would revolve around them. This is the first time in my life, you know, my kids are grown. I'm, my life is about my career. My relationship is to my work and I'm having the greatest time ever. Of course, I get lonely at times, but I wouldn't have been able to do these films at this point and in these ways.

27:31I need that time alone. So I don't know what the future holds, but again, freedom.

27:40Your second failure is your failure to dress for yourself. You spent years dressing for others and you say it was fun at the time, but you're glad it's in the past. So when did dressing for others start for you? Was it when you were in the public eye? Well, I think you start believing what other people see in you and what other people expect of you. And so, I mean, again, I didn't have a stylist back then. A stylist wouldn't have let me walk out the door, you know, if I was wearing some of those costumes. It was just me digging through doors and putting things together and, you know, TV, I would go to the Playboy studio and pick out pieces of clothing, you know, half pieces of clothing and have to put them together somehow.

28:25And they had a great, just wild closet to pull from, which is every color shoe, every color corset, you know. So I just started putting things together myself. I remember I did a campaign for Shock Moose and I remember Simon asking me, who styled you back then? It was so genius. I was like, I guess I'm the genius because I put those together and he had tears in his eyes he was like no don't tell me that that was incredible but it was authentic it was fun I thought it was I remember going to Le Dome back then and I found like polka dot stockings with like the seam up the back and a plastic dress and a and you know wearing my hair in a chignon and putting eyelashes on and it wasn't thought out it was just kind of what I threw together but then in my first marriage you know rock star marriage I thought what does the rock star wife look like?

29:16And then I just started playing that character, even though it's been fun to see Beyonce dress up as me and barbed wire and, and again, those red carpet looks. But I created those characters, which I think is a compliment because I think you can't create a, you are not just a costume. You're the person in the costume. And I think what people responded to weren't just the bedazzled pants, but the actual young girl having fun. Yes. The character you created in that outfit. And you mentioned there that you were creating a character dress-wise within your first marriage, but were there other things that you were dressing for other occasions?

29:57So when you went to promote a film, for instance, in that era, were you under pressure to wear certain things? Well, barbed wire, when I went to Cannes, we hadn't even shot a frame of film yet, but I had my workout leggings in my bag and a little black corset and gloves and boots from a photo shoot I had just done. And so I put that together. It wasn't planned. I just came out on the pier and it was funny. Boats were running into each other and people were falling off of boats. And I kept going, who are they looking at? Like, what's going on? And I realized it was, I had no idea. So I just did that.

30:31I remember that that's so iconic and it was your workout leggings yeah it wasn't that exciting so exciting you are you're a creative genius oh yeah well but all these happy kind of accidents and in the time at the moment it was getting a lot of attention but it wasn't like it was the cover of Vogue it wasn't fashion you know it was me playing and so I don't know if that was a failure, but in the moment it felt disrespected or didn't feel appreciated. But now that this nineties has made this comeback and people are really kind of looking at that time, you know, I guess I was a little bit of a pioneer.

31:14I'll just say that I'll look at it as a positive, but in the moment it was courageous because it was just fun and it was playful, but it wasn't fashion. It wasn't, it wasn't cool. Yes. And do you feel that people didn't take you seriously as a result? Oh, no, people weren't taking me seriously. And I think people forget too, that I was an actress. I was, um, I wasn't just a celebrity because of my personal life or my marriage. I was on Baywatch for many years and I was on VIP for many years. I did a movie, Barbed Wire. It may not be, um, the box office hit, but it's a cult hit. And I was married It was a high profile marriage.

31:55And then people became celebrities for just being celebrities. And I kind of got lumped into that category. But I really wanted to be an actress. And I'm so glad I get to do that now. I am too. You mentioned the 90s there. And we're also living through this era of Y2K resurgence. And there is also this sense that there's a toxicity to it as well in terms of body image. And I wonder what you think about that, because you touched on social media and the impact that that is having. What are your thoughts on it? Well, I think people have to realize too that all these images are retouched or have filters on them and people can make themselves look any way they want, their bodies and everything.