1967-present
Latest News: Pamela Anderson Stars in The Naked Gun
Fresh off the success of The Last Showgirl, Pamela Anderson is back on to the big screen. The Golden Globe Award-nominated actor stars alongside Liam Neeson in The Naked Gun, a revival of the 1988 slapstick action-comedy of the same name. Anderson plays Beth Davenport, a true crime writer who teams up with Neeson’s Detective Frank Drebin Jr. to investigate her brother’s mysterious death.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly in July, the 58-year-old explained how she approached the comedic femme fatale role. “I wanted to bring to the character some vulnerability and sincerity,” she said. “It’s really easy to play way over the top, and it’s good to have some groundedness when there’s this comedy happening. So that was a challenge.”
Anderson partly credits her chemistry with Neeson for pulling this off, adding, “You have to kind of jump off the deep end together.”
The two play lovers in the film, but their onscreen chemistry has also made its way off-screen. After sparking dating rumors with a red carpet kiss on the cheek, People reported on July 29 they’re in the early stages of a relationship.
While the pair have yet to make it official, Anderson told Entertainment Weekly, “I think I have a friend forever in Liam, and we definitely have a connection that is very sincere, very loving.”
The Naked Gun is out in theaters August 1.
Who Is Pamela Anderson?
Pamela Anderson is a Canadian-American model and actor who rose to fame in 1989 for her role on Baywatch. Anderson began her career modeling in beer ads and later graduated to the pages of Playboy. She transitioned to acting on TV’s Home Improvement, but real fame came with Baywatch, making her a household name and instant sex symbol. A longtime supporter of animal rights, Anderson competed on two seasons of Dancing with the Stars and earned a Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance in the 2024 film The Last Showgirl.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Pamela Denise Anderson
BORN: July 1, 1967
BIRTHPLACE: Ladysmith, British Columbia, Canada
SPOUSES: Tommy Lee (1995-1998), Kid Rock (2006-2007), Rick Salomon (2007-2008; 2013-2015), and Dan Hayhurst (2020-2022)
CHILDREN: Brandon and Dylan
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Cancer
Young Pamela Anderson
Pamela Denise Anderson was born on July 1, 1967, in Ladysmith, British Columbia, Canada to working-class parents. Her father, Barry Anderson, was a repairman, and her mother, Carol Anderson, was a waitress. She has a younger brother, Gerry. As a child, Anderson enjoyed playing outside in her scenic town and visited her local library every day for story time, but her upbringing was also marked by trauma. Growing up in a violent and tumultuous household, she witnessed her father physically abuse her mother. When she was about 6 years old, he took his wrath out on her by drowning her kittens in the ocean.
It was around this time Anderson was first sexually abused by her female babysitter. The abuse continued until she was 10. “My parents thought she was generous and kind, when really, it was just a way to get them off the scent,” she wrote in her 2023 memoir Love, Pamela. “At the time I couldn’t understand any of it. She threatened me and told me not to tell anyone. Or else.” Anderson was later sexually assaulted at age 12 by an older acquaintance and again at 14 by her then-boyfriend and his friends. These experiences made her “painfully shy” and caused her to feel “shame” about her body and what happened to her. As a teenager, Anderson attended Highland Secondary School, where she played volleyball. She graduated in 1985.
At age 17, Anderson moved out of her parents’ house and got her own apartment. The move came after multiple attempts to get her mother to leave her dad, including one instance in which she punched him for holding her mom’s head to the stove. In 1988, she relocated to Vancouver, British Columbia, and started working at a tanning salon in a fitness center, where she took aerobics classes. While attending a Canadian football game in 1989, Anderson was featured on the stadium’s jumbotron wearing a form-fitting T-shirt with a Labatt beer logo. This caught the brand’s attention, and she was hired to appear in Labatt advertisements and commercials.
Playboy
Hugh Hefner took notice of Anderson’s work for Labatt, and she was soon invited to pose nude for Playboy magazine and flew to Los Angeles for a photoshoot. In October 1989, she appeared on her first cover of Playboy at just 22 years old. “It was the first flash when I opened my eyes and it felt like I was falling off a cliff,” Anderson told Entertainment Tonight Canada in March 2023. “And it was my first feeling of freedom.” She moved to California to continue her modeling career later that year and was subsequently chosen as Playmate of the Month in February 1990, solidifying her status as a sex symbol.
Anderson went on to grace the cover of Playboy a total of 14 times, setting a record. She was the last person to appear nude in the magazine when she posed for the January/February 2016 issue at 48 years old. Outside of Playboy, Anderson has modeled for a number of fashion and cosmetics campaigns over the years, and even walked the runway for luxury brands, like Boss and Vivienne Westwood.
Movies and TV Shows
Home Improvement and Baywatch
Anderson parlayed her modeling success into a series of guest roles on television programs. She got her first big break in 1991 as the “Tool Time Girl” on the sitcom Home Improvement. While there, she attracted the attention of casting agents from Baywatch, who were looking to replace actress Erika Elaniak. The hour-long show portraying the lives of Malibu lifeguards was a nearly plotless vehicle for semi-nude video montages and the critics panned it accordingly. However, fueled by frequent shots of Anderson in a swimsuit, the show became the highest-rated program worldwide. She also earned a two-episode arc in The Nanny in 1997.
Anderson’s television success did not transfer well to the big screen. Despite mass publicity, including an appearance by Anderson at the Cannes Film Festival clad in a skintight cat suit, her starring effort in the 1996 thriller Barb Wire was both a critical and commercial failure.
V.I.P.
Anderson returned to television in 1998 as the executive producer and star of V.I.P., in which she played the public face of a bodyguard agency. While hardly a pop culture phenomenon in the mold of Baywatch, V.I.P. enjoyed enough success to survive for four seasons, ending in 2002.
Stripperella and Stacked
Continuing to leverage her sex-symbol image, in 2003 Anderson took on the leading voice role in the animated Stripperella, as a stripper who moonlights as an undercover superhero. The series ended the following spring. The same year, she appeared in the opening sequence of horror comedy Scary Movie 3. Anderson later resurfaced in Stacked, as a former party girl who gets hired at a small bookstore. The series was renewed following a trial run in spring 2005, but was off the air by January 2006.
Borat
In 2008, Anderson made headlines when she appeared in the mockumentary hit Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, starring British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. In the film, Anderson played herself in what appeared to be a real-life botched kidnapping. Audiences debated whether or not the appearance was planned or a surprise. Anderson refused to comment, but told MTV that Cohen was “such a nice guy.” The film was nominated for both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe. A cultural icon, she’s made several other TV and film appearances as herself, including in Kath & Kim in 2008.
Dancing with the Stars
While getting the reality TV treatment with Pam: Girl on the Loose in 2008, Anderson starred in that year’s feature film comedies Blonde and Blonder and Superhero Movie. The on-screen vixen was back in the spotlight in 2010, when she competed on season 10 of the hit show Dancing with the Stars. Anderson made her return to the show in 2012, for season 15, Dancing with the Stars: All-Stars.
She later made an appearance in the 2017 big screen reboot of Baywatch, and starred in the horror film The Institute with James Franco and Josh Duhamel that same year. Anderson also competed on the French version of Dancing with the Stars in 2018.
The Last Showgirl
After playing a sheriff in the 2022 erotic horror flick Alone at Night, she landed a lead role in the 2024 drama The Last Showgirl. Starring alongside Jamie Lee Curtis and Billie Lourd, Anderson played 57-year-old showgirl Shelly Gardner, who is forced to plan for her future, following the cancellation of her long-running Las Vegas show. To prepare for the role, she spoke with former showgirls about their art form.
“It was an experiment for me because this is the first time I’ve ever really applied myself to a dramatic role and I am really proud of myself that, instead of falling apart or settling for less, I chose to be truthful and loyal to my own heart,” Anderson told Dazed magazine in February 2025. For her performance, she received her first Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress.
The Naked Gun
After launching her plant-based cooking show Pamela’s Cooking With Love on Canada’s Flavour Network, Anderson returned to the big screen in 2025’s The Naked Gun, a reboot of the 1988 slapstick action-comedy. The actor stars as Beth Davenport, a true crime writer who teams up with Detective Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson) to investigate her brother’s mysterious death. “It was fun to be part of something that was just schoolboy humor, schoolgirl humor and just have a few laughs,” Anderson told The Hollywood Reporter in July. “Everyone likes to have those belly laughs and be silly. I think laughter is medicine and I think it’s much needed.”
Documentary
In 2023, Anderson was featured in the Netflix documentary Pamela, a Love Story. Serving as a response to the scripted series Pam & Tommy, the film aimed to reclaim the narrative by sharing her story in her own words. It directly addressed her rise to fame, public relationships, and the infamous stolen sex tape of her and ex-husband Tommy Lee.
Books
In 2004, Anderson wrote her debut fiction book Star: A Novel, loosely based on her life and rise to fame. The sequel, Star Struck, came out the following year. Anderson next published the coffee table book Raw in 2015, featuring handwritten prose and poetry and photographs of her shot by Emma Dunlavey. A few years later, she co-wrote the 2018 advice book Lust for Love: Rekindling Intimacy and Passion in Your Relationship with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.
Anderson followed up in 2023 with her memoir Love, Pamela, which went into detail about her childhood and Hollywood career. Anderson read through old journals to piece together the autobiography, describing the process as a “healing experience.” In 2024, she released her vegan cookbook I Love You: Recipes from the Heart, which was nominated for a James Beard Award in the Visuals category.
Relationships and Children
Anderson has been married five times to four men. Her first marriage to Motley Crue rocker Tommy Lee in 1995 captured persistent media attention. The couple had two children, Brandon Thomas and Dylan Jagger. However, the marriage was continually fraught with controversy, including an incident in which stolen honeymoon tapes of the couple having sex were broadcast over the internet. The marriage ended in divorce in 1998, after Lee was arrested and convicted of spousal abuse.
Anderson married rapper Kid Rock on a yacht near Saint-Tropez, France, in July 2006. That November, it was announced that she had miscarried. A few weeks later, she filed for divorce from Kid Rock, citing irreconcilable differences.
Anderson married Rick Salomon—Paris Hilton’s partner in their infamous 2003 sex tape scandal—in 2007. The marriage was annulled a couple months later. They remarried in January 2014, but by February 2015, she filed for divorce.
In January 2020, Anderson seemingly married producer Jon Peters, a former boyfriend from when she was a budding model in her young 20s. Just 12 days later, she put the brakes on their union with the announcement that they were taking time apart to “reevaluate what we want from life and from one another.” She later revealed they were never legally married.
In January 2021, it was revealed that Anderson married her bodyguard Dan Hayhurst on Christmas Eve 2020. They divorced in 2022.
Three years later, in July 2025, she reportedly started dating her Naked Gun co-star Liam Neeson.
Hepatitis C
In March 2002, Anderson went public with her hepatitis C diagnosis, claiming she had contracted the disease by sharing a tattoo needle with Lee. In November 2015, she announced that she was cured after completing a new FDA-approved drug treatment. “I feel like I got back 20 years back of my life,” Anderson told ABC News in January 2016. In sharing her story, she has spoken out against the stigma surrounding hepatitis C and encouraged people to get tested for the viral infection.
Animal Rights Advocacy
After becoming a vegetarian as a teenager, Anderson transitioned to veganism in her 20s and has been an outspoken advocate for PETA, protesting the use of fur and the hunting of seals. She even auctioned off a 2000 Viper sports car that appeared in Pam: Girl on the Loose to support the nonprofit organization. In 2018, Anderson swore off wearing leather, advocating for the use of faux leather in fashion.
Anti-Pornography Stance
In August 2016, Anderson co-wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach titled “Take the Pledge: No More Indulging Porn.” In the piece, the unlikely pair warned against the dangers of online porn in the wake of former U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner’s 2016 sexting scandal, calling it a “public hazard of unprecedented seriousness.” Anderson and Boteach argued that porn has a “corrosive effect” on men that is ruining relationships, ending with the conclusion that “porn is for losers.”
Makeup-Free Look
Embracing a makeup-free look, Anderson showcased her natural beauty publicly for the first time at Paris Fashion Week in September 2023. Since then, she continues to appear in public without any makeup, only applying cosmetics for acting roles. In an interview with Better Homes & Gardens in August 2024, Anderson reflected on her decision to change her public image. “Somewhere along the way, I started thinking that I want to challenge the idea of beauty and this mask we put on. As soon as I took the mask off, the whole world opened up,” she said. Explaining that she just didn't want to “sit in a makeup chair” for hours, Anderson added, “I didn’t think anyone would even notice. And then it became this whole thing.”
Net Worth
As of July 2025, Anderson has an estimated net worth of $20 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. In addition to modeling and acting, she is the co-founder of the vegan skincare brand Sonsie.
Quotes
- It is great to be a blonde. With low expectations it’s very easy to surprise people.
- And I’m not an actress. I don’t think I am an actress. I think I’ve created a brand and a business.
- I am the ultimate California girl, which is funny, being that I’m Canadian.
- Somewhere along the way, I started thinking that I want to challenge the idea of beauty and this mask we put on. As soon as I took the mask off, the whole world opened up.
Dey Street Books Love, Pamela: A Memoir by Pamela Anderson
Voracious I Love You: Recipes from the Heart (A Cookbook) by Pamela Anderson
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![a teenage boy holds golden trophy above his head with one hand](https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod/images/owen-cooper-accepts-the-outstanding-supporting-actor-in-a-news-photo-1757950768.pjpeg?crop=0.651xw:0.875xh;0.0561xw,0.0517xh&resize=360:* "Owen Cooper accepts the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie award for "Adolescence" during the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards on September 14, 2025")
