Page 7 - CelebReadies: Pamela Anderson's Love, Pamela Part 1

Episode Date: December 26, 2025

Merry Boxing Day one and all!We love you Pamela! LOVE, PAMELA!!Today we go through the first half of Pamela Anderson's beautiful, poetic memoir. We learn about her childhood in rural Canada, her big break into modeling simply by being hot and wearing a LeBatt's shirt, her recruitment by Playboy, and her rocket ship to stardom. She is truly an incredible person and we are enjoying the hell out of this book!See y'all next year!Want even more Page 7? Support us on Patreon! Patreon.com/Page7Podcast  Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Page 7 ad-free.Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, it's a special episode. We know that you are still a little bit hungry out there, and you're begging for a little more, page seven, noms. Do they even say noms anymore, MJ? I mean, who's they? Dude, I guess, I mean, certainly the youth or not. I guess old people are still saying noms, right? I think our generation and the listeners of page seven are nom, nom, nom, and for some more page seven.

It's Boxing Day, I think. Yes. I think you're getting this on Boxing Day, which is the British way. It certainly is, but not according to Pam Anderson, because she's as American as they go. She is not. She is not, though. It is the Canadian way. It is the Canadian. I like how.

immediately I, as I was saying it, I knew it was wrong. She's not America. She's very Canadian. So Canadian. So Canadian. So maybe she's celebrating Boxing Day to day. No, we are here to talk about Pam Anderson. Now, this episode of celebrities, and for those that are unaware, celebrities, is the show that

we do over on the page 7 Patreon, where we listen to memoirs, and then we talk about the memoirs, so you don't have to. Now, this was Love Pamela, which was the memoir written by Pam Anderson. And MJ, we both fell face first in love with Pam Anderson. This was a great memoir. It was really wonderfully written. It really gave me a completely new understanding of Pam Anderson in all the ways that society did her dirty. And we spent a lot of time talking about that in this episode.

But yeah, it's a really, really great. book and we really enjoy talking about it. And we hope you guys enjoy us talking about it too. So this comes back from the time before. It came out a couple months ago. So we just wanted to, in case you missed it, we wanted you to check it out because if you were wondering why we are in love with her the way we are, this is the beginning of her story. So enjoy it. The second half will be out next week. So everyone let it wash over you for you are about to be obsessed. with Pam Anderson as well. Just take a look.

It's in a book. It's a celebrity. Celebrities. Celebrities. And when there was only one set of footprints, that was when my vocal ability carried Jackie's. And that is not usual. Usually hers is carrying mine.

Usually she's really singing for the both of us. But today I sing for us. For singing for us. Thank you. Thank you for seeking for me. M.J. I didn't think about it until we started it. And I was like, oh, I can't sing this song. Yes. Yes. We have a couple. Well, first of all, welcome back from break. Everybody, thank you for sticking with us on the Patreon for the two weeks that we were not releasing celebrities. We are so excited to dive into our book today. I love Pamela, Colin, a memoir of prose, poetry, and truth. She is a delight. She is a perfect woman, and I can't wait to talk about her. I've fallen in love.

I think that listening to her tell her story, I just, I'll listen to her. She can tell me anything. I really, I feel like I'm learning so much from this celebrity. experience. I know it is just like what we figured out to do for the Patreon after the show was restructured and we weren't sure if it would be sustainable or if we would. But like I feel like every celebrity memoir, I feel like it is really helping me after 15 years of talking about celebrity culture. It's really helping me like flesh things out in a way that feels like very meaningful and comprehensive. Yes. This book is really no exception to that. She is like and and and it is

another one, file it in the same column with Britney Spears, where you read it. And I am like, I am so mad at the past. And every, the way that I thought about, I met at my past self, I met at past society, the way that I thought about her, the way that I dismissed her, the way she has been dismissed for her entire life. Again, we have now done several of the books in this category, right, of like women who we never took seriously. We were wrong. We were wrong. We were so wrong. But another just, you know, housekeeping business announcement before we jump into Love Pamela, a memoir of prose, poetry, and truth is that Jackie is a little under the weather today with the novel coronavirus. Yeah. I don't know if you guys have heard of it,

but it's like this new unique thing. It's just for me. And I have it. Nobody else has ever had it before and it's like I'm the bat you know you're the lab leak yeah yeah yeah I am the lab you're both the bat and the lab league yes we believe that it both came from nature and the lab and it was Jackie in the lab like a kind of Frankenstein yeah it was in when I was in I was a bat shifter and this was like a different form of my life you know yeah yeah and I am making it through I think that I guess no you wouldn't know at this point you are going to hear me for many more hours this week.

Don't worry, she's not going to stop working. No, no, no, no, no. We're back to work and this is the time. This is the time that I've got to be working. And I apologize if you hearing this, I don't know, the depth of my

voice or the congestion that's in it, if that drives you to madness, maybe this isn't your week with me. But I want you to know that I'm being driven to madness, all right, and we're in this together, all right? So if you're getting driven to madness, I'm being driven to madness. And honestly, I don't want anybody else in my passenger seat, MJ.

Except for the listener? Yep. Yeah. You could be in the back seat, but you were then at that point. I'm jumping out of the car before it goes over. No, MG. We're driving very fast. Remember that?

Remember the video I took when we were in Texas? And it was just me screaming, I like to drive it. I like to drive fast because I was going like 95. I remember being in the car while you took that video being like, well, I'm just a little scared, but I do trust Jackie. You know, who else jumped out of a moving car? Pamela Anderson. Wow.

Wow. Yeah, she's certainly, man, Pam Anderson, I love listening to her read her story because of the depth she gives it. She is so smart. She is crazy smart. She's like, oh, I just, this is like, as the layers of, like, shame for how I perceived her in the past come to me. She's talking about her breakup with Tommy Lee. And, of course, we all know what we think about when we think about Pam and Tommy Lee.

And she's like, you know, I helped rebuild my, like, shattered sense of self after our divorce by reading Joseph Campbell's books on mythology. And I was like, I'm so sorry. I ever doubted you, Pam. I'm sorry, Pam. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You're so smart. And we, as a society, put you in a box. A horrific box. But also, not only was it society that put her in the box. It was her family that put her in the box up top. Like, she has been put into a box. And in a way, so interesting to read somebody's story in talking about someone that has been seen for their box.

their entire life. And I literally wrote down a quote that she said, I have never felt beautiful a day in my life. And to listen to how she felt. So Pam Anderson growing up, she's from Canada. She was a tomboy. I mean,

I guess you don't use the phrase tomboy anymore, but that is what she referred to herself as. I think it's still a helpful, you know, a helpful concept she was like not right it's hard i feel like it's when we're trying to kind of like as i said it i was like can i still say i i'm not i apologize if i fended anyone i i just that is how she identified and she was a rough and tumble yeah it's hard right it's hard to figure out how to explain i've also been struggling with this with when i talk to my own kids about like gender stuff

because i'm like you know just what do what do you say i'm like you know you can i'm like we're trying to like kind of detach you know the idea of boy things and boy activities boy clothes or girl things and girl clothes. It shouldn't be genderized. I apologize. But no, but there's also signifiers of like, you know, and it's, it is funny to hear from Pamela Anderson, who is, you know, one of the first kind of like, you know, sex icons I became aware of in my own teenhood, that she was like, I hated pretty things. I didn't ever dress up. I like, you know, I also specifically the way she talked about the popping up of her breasts like the way she even said like individually like the nipples showing up and popping out

and then the mounds like she thought that she had something wrong with her yeah she was so upset about the growth she was a late bloomer and she did not want to be sexually she was like a late bloomer physically and it sounds like maybe emotionally like she not want to be sexual at all which well especially because of what had now i will say yeah Trigger warning guys. Many trigger warnings. Many, many, many, many trigger warnings. Camille Anderson has not had a good life when it comes to how men have treated her. Or women. Or women. Because it is the start of her story of assault, of being molested from a young age, and knowing what was happening, or at least being aware that it was something that was not okay.

And not only that, but the person that had been doing this to her, like they had gotten into a fight and because she, because Pam Anderson was a child and she yelled at this babysitter, it was a teenage girl babysitter. She yelled at the babysitter that I hope you die. And then the babysitter ended up getting into a horrific car accident and dying. Like very shortly after, like within weeks. And Pam Anderson was just like, I didn't know how to tell my parents that I had done it. I didn't know what to deal with. Like, she, from a young, like, she thought she did it. She was experiencing abuse at the hands of a babysitter.

She knew it was wrong, but she didn't know how to like tell anyone. And so she, instead of getting help from adults, she stood up to the babysitter and screamed at her and said, I hope you die. and then, yeah, and then she died. And then Pam Anderson blamed herself for like the rest of her childhood. Which also, you say because she couldn't go to the adults, it's so, man, this story of her parents.

I know. Because like, that's a thing. MJ and I were like, oh, we'll do the first half of the book because it is. There's so much that happens. Even just up until she meets Tommy Lee, there's so much that happens. That's about our target to end this episode

because there's a lot of life that happens for her before Tommy Lee. There's so much life. On top of, like, I found it very interesting, her parents' relationship because it seemed like the way that she set it up, like, in my head, it was like a Rizzo and what was the old man with the Pockmarkville? What was the old man? Kincki was a Kincki that she was with. It was very like Rizzo-Kincki relationship.

Very Rizzo-Kiniki. They met, this is again. Also, maybe a little bit Sandy and Danny, right? And maybe a little Sandy and Danny because it seems like the, like, you get, how Pam Anderson was in her relationships, it's all from her fucking parents. It's all from her mother. It is all, man. And she's so close to her parents, though. Family dynamics replaying.

Totally. Like, it is the beginning of this book when she talks about her, her. family her being a child and her parents who were both very young very young when they met total yeah like hot young hot teenage girl young hot teenage boy meet fall in love real intense real crazy have kids real fast right and live really hard and it's just like they live with a passion that i feel like is the kind of thing that we were told you were always like wanting when we were like i feel like times have changed but i feel like media back then used to be like yeah but the lust it's like it really is but the passion you come back for the passion and now like I'm at an age to read about something like that of like sounds exhausting oh that sounds so tough like you know what's you know what's easier not doing that you know not with the huge breakups and the huge get because like Pam Anderson would even talk like they would get into such brutal fights that Pam

Anderson would take Jerry, her brother, and get out of there, and then they would come back around. But usually when they would come back around after playing around for hours is when the parents stopped physically fighting and started physically fucking instead. And then she'd also have to keep Jerry out of the house. I know. I've been thinking, I've been, I've been thinking a lot about this book. It's really intense and for many reasons. But I've been thinking a lot about the idea of, like, daddy issues with this book and how

Oh, you rang. But I do feel like... You say daddy issues and I show up wherever you say it. Maybe this is just because I'm back in school and I'm back to like studying, you know, I like, I think it's interesting to like learn about like family dynamics and the ideas of like why things go, why certain behaviors, you know, go from generation and generation. Oh, that's a fun perspective. Yeah. And I feel like Pamela's book is so interesting for so many reasons. But she basically, right, describes the.

Not only the dynamic between her own mom and dad, but her dynamic in that, right, which was to kind of like be a peacemaker, to protect her mom, but also like, you know, she's kind of like always, she loved her dad. She's kind of always wanting to forgive him and give him another chance and like kind of just accept him for his flaws and the good things that he brings to the relationship. And, you know, and then you do see. It doesn't seem like he's horrible to her. he just all like she just has always wanted his approval and he's a yeah and he's a very flawed man yes he's a very flawed man that it just seemed like he was kept getting wrapped up and stuff and but then she does go out of her way to say like he was the kind of father still that no matter what time or where she was if she called he would come and pick her up no questions asked so like totally

still someone she could rely on, you know. I found myself in the part, not to jump ahead here, but in the parts, there's a lot of different relationship stuff we'll end up talking about. But in the early part, when she's describing her very early relationship with Tommy, it's like, you know, I'm not going to say Tommy Lee is a good guy because he's obviously not. He's obviously not a good guy, right? And the way that she writes about their love and their romance, it obviously has really big echoes of the dynamic between her and her father,

her mother and her father, and not in just like a dismissive daddy issues way, but in a way that really makes sense. You're like, you, this person loves you really passionately and really fiercely, and you see all, you see the ways that he wants to protect you and he cares about you and that you want to keep seeing

all of this good in him and what he has to offer. And like, I just feel like that it's, daddy issues as a way of kind of dismissing the way that your own role in a, family as a kid might be a role that you carry with you into adulthood and that you find yourself you know into the in that role again because that's what makes sense to you and I feel like yeah the stuff with her dad I kept I kept finding myself I wanted to be like what a shitty bad dad and you know obvious anytime there's abuse I'm not trying to be like it's okay sometimes it's not right

of course of course but also she is just like he was a shitty dad he was a drunk he did all these horrible things. And also, there was all these ways in which he made me feel safe in which I was always hoping for him to, you know, to be, to be better. And it's just, it's very complicated, right? Also, especially with her father, it does seem like it was night and day from when he was drunk. Yeah. Versus when he was sober. And obviously it's like, oh, that's crazy. That's unlike most people. No, that's not what I'm saying. But I did write down, we're having all this. And I was like, yeah, I feel like, what, what? And then I did. write down when her father takes the kittens she had brought home yeah she had brought home a bunch of

kittens and he was hammered he was angry and he took all the kittens and he put them in a bag and he drowned them in front of her she was so yeah she was young she was a kid but also one thing man even starting from then from the fucking rip pam Anderson loves animals This was my introduction to her as a teenager. When I was 16 and I went vegetarian and I found Pita's website. Pam Anderson was the first person I saw it. And I, at that time in what, for me, what was that? I don't know, early 2000s, it was so rare to be vegetarian or vegan.

And I was like, oh, Pam Anderson, the hottest woman alive as a vegan. And so, yeah, it was, I think it was the kittens thing, but also, you know, she's growing up in like remote, you know, British, Vancouver, British Columbia, there you go. Thank you. I was like, I'm going to, I'm going to biff it with all these Canadian things. But yeah, she's like, she lives, her family lives in kind of like a collection of, like, cabins, like in the woods, where the woods meets the water. It sounds like kind of idyllic if it hadn't been, you know, kind of a dysfunctional family. But so, you know, it's like very rural and she's exposed to a lot of hunting. And when she sees a deer carcass for the first time she decides she's never she like puts it together like that's what meat is and so

she's like all right nope not for me and she becomes vegetarian from a very young age very young age and has been and then she continues to be i mean one of like i'm sure we'll get to this later in the book but one of she's pita is so controversial as an organization her relationship with pita is one of the it's not the most controversial thing about her but it's always been one of the wonderful things. But one of the things that I was very, it put a smile in my spirit. Yeah, I said it. Was her talking about anti-vi. I'll please allow it. Just the sickness. It's the sickness, MJ. You know I'm not usually this vulnerable. Yeah, right. I'm always vulnerable. I'm literally a bleeding wound. I'm not. I'm a person. But I love her talking about her anti-vi. And anti-vi,

is where it seems like now that we know that we have the Pam Anderson you know I've got pickles she gets her love of pickles from her Antivai but also this woman sounded so awesome

she apparently she was like a widow with a spice for life she loved making parochies she loved feather boas negliges false eyelashes and wigs and I wrote down she said this was her advice on men from Antivai

never trust a man with a wandering eye. He's most likely a sex addict. Number two, you should have a few men in your life, one for conversation, one for presence, and one for sex. It's impossible for a man to do it all. And number three, you could only have one true love.

And once you've found it, and whether you've kept it or not, whether you've lost it, you will never recover. Oh my God. And that's what she was told from a young age. And that is what she says later about Tommy Lee. I know, bro. She says that was the one love of her life and there's nothing that has ever compared.

And she will never recover. And that, I feel like if that is put into you from a young age, I feel that there are, like, I do believe in my soul that everyone has many loves. in their life. I think it is loves for different reasons. I think it is loves for different seasons. I believe in friend love. I believe in, you know, like a platonic, I think

that there are soulmates in many different ways. And I think that's a beautiful way to live. I understand though, if you were told for so long that it's one and done and if they destroy you, well, that's love

baby. She loved she loves so fiercely. Especially when she sees this love between her parents, which is very strong and very, I mean, her parents stay, I mean, they don't stay together consistently, but they are, they remain together, you know, and throughout her life. Pamela has been supporting them her, like, from the second she started making money, I know. She has been supporting them ever, and ever since. I know. Okay, so before we're going to, we're about to transition from like, you know, kind of teenage, I mean, there's a lot, there's, more horrors of her teenagehood.

What about, like, she's even talking about, like, working in the restaurant with her mother and there's a police officer in their small town that's just obsessed with her and follows her every, like, she's, and she hated her body. She hated being looked at, and it was, it's so, like, how does she, like, all the years of therapy she has gone through to be like, but this is what has given me the opportunities that I've had is because of her body. I know, and her, and her, like, natural beauty, right? And it's, like, it's wild, right, that now we are experiencing this book and this new era of Pamela Anderson, where, because she is a little bit older, she is just by definition in a different category for how society is willing to perceive her, because we are not willing to perceive older women with the same, like, in the same ways as we do younger women.

but yeah I mean she I something we haven't even said yet but I will say this is a really well written book she's a great writer she is incredibly smart incredibly thoughtful and the way she tells her story it is full of of trauma but it feels very it's interesting I want to read the first paragraph if I may there's an LA review of books article about her memoir called mere mythos on Pamela Anderson's love Pamela and I'm I feel like it just really sets the scene for as we get into some of the stuff that happens as she gets out of childhood. Love Pamela Carey is an air of predestination, an elliptical hero's journey that starts and ends at Pamela Anderson's childhood home on Vancouver Island. Epic highs and lows alike are muted in this contemplative memoir by Anderson's resolute acceptance of things as they are, rather than the way she might like them to be. Would-be villains are reduced to their actions rather than their motivations, one might project onto them. Irredeemable acts reflect more on the cruelty of the world than the inhumanity of their perpetrators. This same lens is turned on those Anderson loves. Even when they commit violence against her or others, accountability never quite slips into condemnation. At various points,

Anderson invokes fables, Kabuki Theater, and Shakespeare to describe her life. But her memoir often resonates like a Greco-Roman myth. A fantastic story meant to illustrate the capricious whims of the gods and our powerlessness in the face of them. On the divine scale, the emotions of mere mortals barely register. And it is so, it is like, I feel, it does have this kind of otherworldly quality to be like, I was Pamela Anderson. I was Playboys, Pamela Anderson. Now I'm this like, older woman, you know, in her late 50s who's not wearing makeup. And this is my story. And it is, it's not, it's like, it's a little bit like Julia Fox's memoir in the sense that it's just like a, it's just like this is what happened. This is what happened. But

I thought that this paragraph is so interesting to be like, she really has a lot of compassion for everybody, whether it's her dad or whether it's Tommy Lee. But then also this memoir gets into like the shortcomings perhaps are like she doesn't get into, she never condemns, for example, Hugh Hefner, right? She like, she has a very, a way of kind of describing her life. It's almost like that. It's not like the notebook, but it's like the way, it's like just going back and telling it like it's a story. Right. Right, right. And I also, you know, I was looking into whether she had a ghost writer or not.

And actually, I guess there were other books that she had become a part that she was a part of before this book that she ended up pulling out of because they weren't like doing what she wanted them to do. And she wanted to be able to have control over the narrative. so she had pulled out until she had approved ghostwriter Eric Shaw Quinn. And this person said, this editor that Pam Anderson was working with said, when he called me to tell of the gift she had sent to say that she had approved him of him, Pam Anderson had sent the ghostwriter a pair of Lusite platform heels with a note that read, Eric, if you're going to help me tell my story, you're going to have to walk a mile in my shoes. and that's how she started

but like it's like such a fun classic way to start it and she said Pam may have played the dumb blonde to her benefit but she was pretty canny it wasn't just the way the self-described feminist presented her protagonist as someone people tended to underestimate

it was the way she pushed back when I wanted her to include more explicit sex scenes that shouldn't have surprised me Pam had no problem saying no and I think of what and I know we're not getting to that yet of how much has been done about her to her towards her that is not that like she felt she had to do man it's so crazy to think okay she's working as a waitress right she's in this small town she ends up she gets noticed at a football game because she's wearing a labat's shirt she's wearing a labat's shirt and she's in the stands and labat almost is immediately hires her to be a model for Labelette.

Like, she is plucked. She is so hot. She's so hot. She's plucked from the nothing to become a model. Like that, like, and again, someone that has always hated how she looked. I know. And so she saw it as an opportunity, but what is so interesting and cool is when, as she starts talking about, like, when she first starts working with playboy and how so many people especially at the time would see it so differently she saw it as

taking her power from the beginning she sees playboy she sees all of that as like okay this is stuff that i don't like about me but this is something this is my power which is going to harness it which is wild because i'm chilled i know and we're talking early 90s like i like i you know i feel like this is, I mean, she is, she is making these choices to do Playboy from a point of, from her own point of view of like, this is, this is actually like one of the first times I have felt powerful. And she is talking about this, you know, the work in this way at a time that there's like, there's not even like, I mean, this is like at the time, I think that there is kind of the emergence of feminist scholarship talking about this type of work in a similar way. I, this is,

She's so much coming from an era where the only view of work like Playboy is exploitation and, you know, disempowerment that I, I, when she gets the call, she gets the call from, you know, she gets the LaBad, she starts modeling from the, the, the badge shirt. And, uh, and then she gets the call about Playboy. And at the time, she's in an abusive relationship. And she is just like, this is my way out. I'm doing it. I, I, and she, she basically just kind of runs, like she doesn't even have a work visa.

She tries to get on the plane. They tell her she can't get on the plane without a work visa. She goes, changes her outfit, like puts on a mustache. Put it on a mustache. And it's like, hello, I'm, I am different. I am a different person who doesn't need a work visa. No, she does. Bitch gets a bus ticket.

She gets a bus over the border to try and get from a young age. Because this is, you know, I found another quote. she is very heavily inspired by and it also makes sense it is a dolly part and quote and it's just find out who you are and do it on purpose and that i think every step of the way of like yes because she went after this she's like all right okay this is a shot for me so young it's yeah it's it's she's so young and um i guess at this point she isn't her early twice i mean i's still so young so young but she is in her early 20s because she doesn't, like, right? She doesn't she, she doesn't get her breasts until she was like 18.

Yeah, yeah, right. So not that that's old. I'm not saying she's old. I mean, like, in the scheme of things young after like a brand new body is what I'm thinking. Of like trying, like, okay, I've got this brand new body and I hate it, but everybody likes it. So what can I do with this? Totally. Yeah.

And it's right. And it's just so interesting how she, yeah, I'm like, I'm just thinking about how at a time that was, again, very regressive in terms of, I mean, obviously Playboy was like a respected institution. But in terms of it was still Playboy. It was Playboy. And the women were. In the 90s. There was no, you know, the concept of like sex positivity was kind of born out of. a lot of, I think academic, correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like that concept was kind of

born out of the third wave of feminism, which was starting in the early 90s. And so obviously, I think that there was, she was not like Pamela Anderson was the first person to be like, I, I control how I make money and how I represent myself. But to do that at a time when the overwhelming, you know, kind of popular mentality around the women who did playboy, like, yeah, Hugh Hefner had a lot of respect. The magazine had a lot of respect because they actually like paid their writers and published good work. But the women didn't, weren't respected. They weren't respected as agents of their own careers, right? And so I just feel like her being like, I am doing this for myself and I feel really good about this because this is my way out. I just

feel like it's really amazing to watch her have that agency at a time that society was denying that agency to women who were making those choices. Not only that, but when her own agency was denied, and I know that we had said multiple trigger warnings earlier, and I'm not going to get into the specifics of the other things that happened to her from the age of 14 and below, multiple instances of horrific things that have happened to her. And her agency was taken away at the age of, what was she, 10, 11? Yeah.

I mean, even before then, six. her agency was taken away over and over again and to come in with that like that is so inspirational to go and take it back for you and then you just watch where her mouth and her spirit feel this way and then it's just person after person who still uses her and still like it's like even down to like you know she never wanted to act either and then she ends up like becoming which i completely forgot she was the tool time girl on home improvement yeah and of course the first thing tim allen does when he sees her on set is open up his robe he sees her on set he she sees him on set in a robe he opens up his robe he's

nude underneath. He flashes her and then he closes the robe and was like, I mean, I already saw all of yours. So I figured I'd show you mine. I know. This is such a great example of like, yeah, here you have somebody who is like extremely intelligent, extremely, you know, driven. And yeah, she's ambitious, but right, it is interesting. She's, she's very like ambitious, but on the one hand, but on the other hand, she literally was just kind of plucked from a crowd. because she's hot and she was like okay all right this is what i'm doing but she jumps on it though she fucking uses it and she like she turns it into i mean oh god ew the other ew that i had to write down because i don't remember this story because apparently jack nicholson tells this

story oh my god yes when they were in the fucking playmate mansion and bam i think we've talked about this story on page seven too i know we've talked about the tim allen one i forgot about the jack Nicholson, one where she was walking through the playmate mansion. She saw Jack Nicholson with two women up against a wall. And he looks over at Pam Anderson and just went, uh, and they went, thanks, darling. And walked away because he came, went just right when he looked at her. Yeah, he like, she helped him over the finish line. Yes, but this is so, it's like, this is a person who is so much an agency of her own, uh, of her, like, she is making the choice to do Playboy and, you know, the other, the future choices she makes in her career,

she makes them with thought and with agency, but everyone else objectifies her. Like, I just feel like in the 90s, the word objectify, it was like, Playboy objectifies women, objectifies women. But it's like, to objectify somebody is something that you do to them. Like, Pamela Anderson is not objectify herself. She is making. Objectified. Yeah, she is being objectified, right? And like she, it's such, and this goes to like the, like, the, my, my retroactive rage for how I perceived her for all of these years. I know. Like, like, it was, again, the 90s, it was not in our, it was, there was no framework for thinking of somebody who would choose to be a playboy bunny, a playmate, because it is good work, because it was a way to make, you know, to support her family and to build towards another career. she said she's like, I'm not super, I was never super ambitious about acting. But I, yeah, I think that

it's just so, so fascinating to hear the way that she has the vocabulary of being like, this was not like, me doing Playboy wasn't the tragedy. The way people were treating me was the tragedy. Well, not only that, but it was like at a time period where you could be a playboy model and make a very, very, very good living by doing all the side projects and the side. Right. And the side projects were, oh, we're all, like, this really rich person wants us all to go do X, Y, and Z, or, oh, it's like being taken to a second location where you're never supposed to go to a second location. She was given so many opportunities, essentially, not that she, it does, and I'm saying

this in a way that she was not being judgmental about sex work whatsoever. Right. She was not being judgmental towards the other women that chose to. because, again, you could make great money by just staying in the world of the playmates, and that was not for her. She wasn't doing that. She was there to model, but it seemed like also shame on all of us for thinking that because a person loves to have sex,

because they like to enjoy having sex with someone, they enjoy having sex with, that that means she's a slut. Right. And I'm not saying that sex workers, I'm not saying any of that. I'm saying that for her specifically, she was,

especially with eventually, she was labeled a slut since, like, from the rip. And for everybody wants to look at your body. So she's like, okay, everybody wants to look at my body. How can I use this to my advantage? And then it's like, wow, you slut. And it's like, right?

You know, and it's like, She's just, she just understands that this is a commodity that, you know, like, I'm not saying her body is a commodity, but you know what I mean? She's understanding that she has something that people want to pay for. Same thing with she has a brief period of time where she's kind of taken under the wing of a sugar daddy. And a little bit of that that was kind of naivete, her not really realizing. That was a scare, man, that situation could have gotten so scary. It was like this producer that, like, she had came to L.A. She had nothing.

And this guy was like, let me give you my Bel Air Mansion, you can stay there, I'll give you a Mercedes, I'll give you everything you want, and she did that for a while. And then she started seeing some other dude, and the guy was like, you know that this could get bad, like really fast, right? And she's like, I didn't even know. Because she didn't think evil of people. Like, I feel like she really does truly believe the best in a lot of people. Totally. And I think, yeah, it's a little different. I was thinking about the part of Julia Fox's book where she talks about her sugar daddy. And for Julia

Fox's, you know, her sugar daddy like was her survival like lifeline. Right. That was how she, but not just for survival, but that also how she built something. And yeah, I think with Pamela Anderson, it was like, she was like, okay, I came, Playboy brought me down here. Playboy loves me. Playboy wants to keep me. I want to do this work. This is great. And then this sugar daddy is like, oh, I don't want you to do Playboy. Like, I'll pay for everything for you. And at first, She's just like, okay, so now I have a house and now all my needs are met and everything. And then, yeah, this, the, when I think it was Mario Van Peebles was like, it was like, you shouldn't be in this situation.

And she was like, okay, all right. But yeah, it's like, it's very, her relationship with it is so, I, what I really like, again, about her telling the story now at the age of 58 or the book came out a couple years ago, but at this older age of telling the story, she tells it so much without, without judgment of herself. And I feel like she is, as a, as a public figure, is so steeped in judgment, particularly because of the sex tape, but like that she is at every, another person, another person like Britney, like Julia Fox, kind of, where like at every point, agency has been taken, try, people

are trying to take things away from you, trying to take away your power interpersonally, trying to take away your power as a public figure. And she is just like, yeah, I was, you know, this was, this was, you know, this was, you know, this was my work and this was how I got. And then, you know, it launches her from tool time, you know, she becomes, she's, she's a rising, her star rises very quickly. And that's another funny thing about the book. She kind of just like, yeah, next thing I knew it was, you know, it was a bit part of married

with children. And then I was on tool time. And then I was in Baywatch. And like, it's just like, oh, okay. That, that happened quickly. But yeah, from there, you know, she finds herself with, she suddenly goes from somebody with kind of like no power and status, you know, certainly in her life in Canada, to somebody with not, again, still not a lot of power, but a lot of status.

Not, but and yet still like she really tries at every step to have as much control over the situation as she can. Yeah. But like back then, she just wasn't given it. She wasn't. Right. But she's a thoughtful and intentional, like she's, she's making these career choices. like in a very thoughtful way.

But yes, right, she does, she just doesn't, she is at every step, I think it's very, I mean, it is, it's how, it's like she is categorically prevented from being taken seriously as a person because of the type of hot she is, you know. And also so crazy to even think that like, she didn't really want to be an actor, but she was just so hot that they were like, please, though, just do it. But then she just throws it out there, which is so funny as someone that like, I struggle with memorizing things and always have, always will. And she was like, but I've got this photographic memory.

So I guess I may as well put it to good use. That's the thing. She's so great. She's so smart. She's incredibly smart. And at no point in her life has anyone ever expected her to be smart, which is perhaps another way that she is able to like act as an agent when no one else wants her to be like when no one else will is willing to see her this way because she's just like oh

you just think I am a hot dumb person but I'm actually a hot smart person but then but then it is sometimes though mj she goes with fucking Tommy Lee she goes with Tommy she doesn't know who this guy is doesn't know anything about him he follows her to cancun he follows her to She says, don't come to Cancun with me. I don't. No, MJ, she goes, you better not come to Cancun with me. She knows. She knows he's better not.

And I love. She likes them and she's like, don't come. It made me think of, like, I love Pam Anderson talks about her best friend. Her name is blanking where I can't forget what her best, I forget what her best, I forget what her best friend's name is. Whenever Pam Anderson's best friend, she is like the yin to Pam Anderson's yang. And, like, her best friend met Tommy Lee. And when, like, she first, and she was like, no, Pam, no.

No, no, Pam, don't do this, Pam. And Pam's like, but he's not going to follow me to Cancun, is he? And so she's with her best friend. They go to Cancun. They get married by the end of the trip. And on the flight home, she asks him his last name after they've already. And then they spent the entire rest of the flight, fucking. I loved, I wrote down this line and I was like, I, so my friend's birthday was yesterday

and I started a voice note with this because I wish this for her and her next birthday. We knew nothing of one another outside of our ecstasy-induced love weekend in Mexico. And that is a way in which we all should be living. We knew nothing of one another outside of our ecstasy-induced love weekend in Mexico. And that is one thing you can say about Pamela Anderson, even though she's making these choices with a lot of, you know, with a lot of thought, like in terms of, you know, being a playmate and how she's choosing what she's doing with her career and stuff. She also, yeah, she loves, she likes sex. She enjoys it. She loves sex.

And she loves having sex with Tommy Lee. And they have a great time together. It sounds like it's like because also, you know, shame on me. I've never, I mean, not shame on me for never seeing the video. I've never seen the video before. But I guess I would always assume that they, like, if you think Pam Anderson and Tommy Lee outside of reading this book, I would have thought like, oh man, they're hanging from the fucking ceiling. But even the way she talked about their sex. I know.

It's very loving. She's like, it was, she's like, it wasn't angry. it was so loving and romantic and they just had the romance that's why she is so draw like it's the romance it's the lust but lust and romance going together in a way that I think she always wanted

like especially in watching her parents it's that passion that she's always like to her that is all you need totally And she never, one of the lines in this L.A. review of books review is that she never, she refuses to self victimize or pathologize. And when she's talking about, yes, getting married to Tommy Lee after a weekend in Cancun, she is just like, you know, it was, we were in love with each other. We were in love with each other. I feel like she feels the same way about it and the way I feel about my bad tattoos, where I'm just like, it was a great memory. I remember going and getting it. I remember like, I remember the time.

Like it made sense and it was for me at the time. And what a beautiful way to look at devastating relationships. Yeah. Like it is really such a, I could only wish to get to a place in my life. Honestly, I do feel like it is in that same kind of level of like a Carrie Fisher of like a looking back on your life. Yeah. Rather than condemning herself. Yes.

it's an acceptance. Yes, yes, totally. And obviously things do not stay so good with Tommy Lee. No. But, yeah, the way that she talks about, there's really no, even him. This isn't really a story of like villains and heroes. She's just like, this is this part of my life and this is what happened. And so we'll talk about that.

I think where we'll leave it is the love making it from Cancoud and then we'll get into everything that happens after that. I do want to throw it out there in case I forget next week. In the Wikipedia, which I don't know if this is right, but it actually does make sense. It's very funny because in the beginning of the book, she's talking about being a scat soloist in the middle school jazz band. And for a moment, she does the like, skibop to do to scutit. And she scats a little bit. And in her Wikipedia, someone changed it.

Have you seen Naked Gun yet? No, not yet. And J, she has a scat solo in it. And it makes sense that's like, I wonder if she brought it in because she used to do scat solos in her middle school jazz band. That is so, so funny. I love her. I love her. I love her.

Thank you to everybody that told us to read this book. I can't thank you enough I am I'm, it's one of the few I'm gonna say it wish it were longer I know

wish there was more I know yeah the way that she tells it is fascinating it's well written she's a really really fascinating person and yeah

there are the content notes will continue the stuff with Tommy Lee obviously doesn't go well and unfortunately all that stuff we were saying about her being the agent

of her life all of that goes away when it comes to the thing that she has made most famous for completely against her will, which is, of course, the sex tape, which was, uh, we'll, we'll get into it, but, um, was not, uh, really a sex tape per se, the way that you think of a sex tape, like, like Kim Kay's sex tape was not released by them and remains one of the worst things that

has ever happened to her. And so that really fucking sucks. But we will, we will leave her and Tommy right now, uh, in the mile high club, fucking in the plain bathroom wildly in love with each other and we will come back to them there next week. While it all comes

a tumbling, a tumbling down, except not because she builds it back up. Don't worry, guys. It's going to end on a high note. And now we know that it's ending with her being in love with Liam D. We'll talk more about that on page seven. Oh, we're going to talk more about that on page seven.

And thank you guys so much for hanging out with us during celebrities. Hopefully my voice didn't drive you into madness, But again, if it did, at least you're there with great company. I'm right there with you. Thank you so much, MJ. And thank you for falling in love with Pam Anderson alongside me. All I wanted to do was talk to you about Pam Anderson.

I have talked about Pam Anderson so much to my also sick husband. And he has also, like he gets it. He understands. Yeah, I haven't told Gideon much, but maybe I should start. Really? I feel like I couldn't. stop. I just was like, oh my God, and then this, and then it's just like, and all this stuff just keeps happening to her. And she like, she almost feels like it would be rude to say no to people. And it's like, why is that put into us as like people that are raised as like societally

as women? Why are we like, like, oh, all these things like, oh, my red flags are going up. But it would be rude to say no. Why? Why do we feel that way? I love you guys. We're going to get out of your We love you guys. Thank you for your patronage. Get ready for more, Pamela, next week. And for now, shall we sing the song? Shall we sing it?

MJ? Just take a look. It's in a book. It's celebrities. Celebrities. Celebrities. Celebrities. This show is made possible by a lot of, this show is made possible by a lot of,

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