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Earlier this month, Pamela Anderson was in the kitchen with her mother, who criticized her as she thought to herself, "I should have had an abortion." "He didn't say it out loud, but in my head. Because it's all been my fault since I was born. I am the reason she married my father. I have always carried this weight on my shoulders and I feel responsible for everything that has gone wrong," says the actress of Vigilantes de la playa.

Pamela suspects her mother feels the same way about her. "I really believe it. I don't think it's intentional. But I think, unconsciously, in her mind lingers the idea of the different life she might have had if she hadn't gotten pregnant at that age. I felt responsible, even as a child. That's why I'm glad I wrote this book, because I think sometimes we forget that each person has their own story. We don't know where others come from or what they've been through, and we rush to judge."

From a cover to the world

For most of his life, Anderson has been the subject of the world's judgment. At age 22, when she first appeared on the cover of Playboy, and in 1992, when she became world famous running in slow motion across the Californian sand in a red swimsuit. And again three years later, when the lightning wedding on a Mexican beach of the star of Vigilantes de la playa with rock star Tommy Lee, of Mötley Crüe. The bride wore a white bikini, her maid of honor was a stranger she had met in a club the night before and did not even know what her husband's surname was.

When, less than a year later, the newlyweds' safe was stolen from their home and Penthouse was sold a sex tape that was later broadcast around the world, many thought it was a sordid publicity stunt concocted by the couple. When they tried to file a complaint, the lawyer explained to Anderson that he had no right to privacy after posing for Playboy.

Public and private abuse

After being treated badly by the tabloids and harassed by the paparazzi, her marriage began to falter, and when Lee assaulted her in 1998 while holding her second newborn child, she abandoned him. Lee was sentenced to six months in jail, they divorced, reconciled and separated again. Twenty-five years, five marriages, multiple Playboy covers and realityshows later, I opened his biography hoping to find in it the extraordinary emptiness of a pin-up.

And I wasn't the only one. "People would tell me, 'It's impossible for you to write a book.' Even my kids would tell me, 'Mom, you have to be able to write in a way that people can understand.'" And she would say, 'Children, have a little faith in your mother, I think I can do it.' Her literary agent told her, 'Honey, you're going to need help,' but she thought, 'I can write, stupid, give me some credit.' And so I wrote it."

Love, Pamela, as it is titled, begins with a poignant and elegiac portrait of a barefoot tomboy girl growing up among the majestic pines and voices of the coastal towns of Vancouver Island. Teenagers at the time of their birth, their parents were beautiful, poor, unpredictable and savage: "Beautiful and cursed, the local Bonnie and Clyde."

Childhood of fear and horror

His father was a poet, a bully, heavy drinker, poker player, illegal racing driver and hunter. His mother was a waitress, housewife, "creator of magical atmospheres", a charming blonde in charge of fish barbecues, bonfires on the beach and naked baths in the moonlight. Her father was a drunk, violent and cruel man who, belt in hand, terrorized his wife and drowned his daughter's kittens in front of his very eyes. His mother was eternally in the bathroom, crying tears stained with mascara, always on the verge of abandoning him, carrying Pamela and her little brother, Gerry, in the car to sneak into an exile of food stamps, powdered milk and loneliness. Madly in love with him, she always came back.

Anderson was abused by her nanny from the age of six to ten. To her parents she was a big nanny, so she didn't dare to say anything. She lost her virginity at age 12, when she was raped by a 25-year-old man. Two years later, her teenage boyfriend raped her along with a group of friends.

The involuntary sex symbol

He took refuge in his imagination — "it's a survival mechanism" — and found solace in a world of fairy tales and imaginary friends. She became the most unwitting sex symbol in history. While the world drooled over his body, Anderson read books on philosophy and psychology, devoted himself to poetry, art and activism. His most important friendships have been with creative spirits – Werner Herzog, Vivienne Westwood, David LaChapelle – and his greatest achievements have been achieved through activism, participating in campaigns for animal rights, the environment and in support of refugees. She has always been aware that people underestimate her: it is not at all what you think. Anderson didn't want his publisher to turn to a ghostwriter: "Oh my God, it was so dramatic. Because not only was he opening Pandora's box, but he was unleashing an anger that he had been dragging since childhood. I was expelling all those emotions that I had been suppressing. And it helped me a lot, because it also made me realize for myself why I became who I am."

Meeting in the kitchen

We're in his kitchen, in the family home he returned to about four years ago: a handful of wooden cabins his grandmother used to rent from the bikers of the Hell's Angels in the working-class town of Ladysmith. The 55-year-old wears no makeup, wears a white linen T-shirt, faded baggy jeans and white leather clogs, and appears to float above the ground with the nimble precision of a teenage dancer. As self-conscious as she is naïve, her bearing is delicate. She laughs a lot, often at herself, and when she speaks she tends to get lost in long ramblings. There seems to be nothing he doesn't want to show me or tell me. I ask her how it feels to tell everything about herself. "Freedom." When Anderson looks at old photos from when she was a child, you can tell in her eyes that even then she was "sexualized" and she does not understand that anyone noticed. "Or maybe they did notice," she reflects, thinking about the rapists who attacked her as a teenager, "and maybe that's also why I was targeted."

She is convinced that almost all women working in the entertainment industry were abused as children. "I really believe it. I think it's almost an initiation. It is a form of vulnerability that you carry with you all your life if you have suffered any type of abuse. You have a kind of tattoo on your forehead that says you're different. You lack limits, healthy limits." If you hadn't been abused, would your career have been different? "I wanted to be a librarian. But I took a different path."

"I took back my power"

As her first job, Anderson waited tables at a local coffee shop until she had to flee an abusive ex-boyfriend by escaping to Vancouver, where she worked at a tanning salon and became officially engaged at age 21. When a cameraman photographed her in the crowd at a soccer game in 1989 wearing a Labatt jersey, the beer brand immediately hired her as a model. Anderson was horrified: ever since her nanny had started abusing her, she hated her own face, hated her body. "I thought it was ugly."

One day, not long after, the phone rang. "Playboy?" she repeated as the voice introduced herself as the magazine's photo editor. Hugh Hefner had seen her posters for Labatt and wanted her at Playboy's Los Angeles headquarters to pose on the cover of the October issue. I was terribly shy and hated that feeling. That's why I did it, because I didn't want to feel that way again." Anderson had never boarded a plane, let alone a limousine, and the Playboy Mansion stunned her: "Doing the first session made me realize what it felt like to be a sensual woman. I took ownership of my sexuality and regained my power."

Pamela Anderson never had the slightest interest in using her feminine charms, while on the other hand, her mother's favorite mantra was: 'Natural beauty does not exist: two hours in front of the mirror is enough.' Or, 'There's no excuse for being ugly,' and she lived by these maxims. "My mother was very careful. He would say, 'You have more power if you're beautiful. Take care of yourself and you will be a better wife and mother, you will be better at everything. People listen to you more if you look good.'" And in Los Angeles it all turned out to be true. Playboy stylists transformed her into a resplendent blonde and Hefner adored her. A Hollywood producer, Jon Peters, took her into one of his Bel Air villas, showered her with gifts and hosted exclusive dinners in her honor with movie celebrities.

For the first time in her life, Anderson felt desired and aware of what she wanted. "At that time I dreamed of people opening doors for me. I had this romantic worldview and I thought I wanted a man to be a man." Feminism was fine as long as it helped get the right to vote, Anderson thought, "but I said to myself, let's not go too far." "When I grew up, I realized how stupid and naïve I was. Now I feel very different." He looks at me with a self-deprecating smile: "We all evolve."

"This is my career"

It is disconcerting to look back at her old interviews and see how the presenters treated her, talking about her breasts as if she were literally an object. Anderson looked condescending and gave a chuck of complicity, but who knows what he was really thinking. "The truth is, I never thought I was sexist, but I said to myself, okay, this is my career, I've prepared for this. To be honest, I didn't care, I lived from day to day." No wonder she married Tommy Lee. The archetypal bad boy—handsome, libertine, unruly, violently jealous (just like his father)—had always been his ideal type. And, on the other hand, a less blatantly passionate courtship than that of his parents was unlikely to seem like true love to him. The night before the wedding, Lee poured ecstasy into the drink, a drug he had never taken before, capable of inducing a state of euphoria and disinhibition. "Have you ever tried anything like that?" he asked. In all sincerity, she said no. "Well, then let's get married," he urged her. "Yes, great," she nodded, in a soporific state of happiness.

Love and the Stolen Tape

The love affair with Lee was plethoric – Anderson herself says that their first year together was immensely happy – but the humiliation over the matter of the stolen tape (she would never call it "sex tape"), as well as the feeling of helplessness and shame, were unbearable. After days and days of questioning by lawyers who had hung her Playboy covers on the walls and harassed her with questions about her sexual preferences and favorite positions ("As if this had anything to do with the theft and sale of our private property!"), she dropped the legal action for fear that the stress would harm the child she was expecting. While he feared he would never return to work, Lee continued to get into trouble for his quarrels with the paparazzi.

One ordeal after another

Deeply disturbed by the fact that her suffering has been dusted off as mere entertainment in a new Disney+ series, she confesses that she will never watch the series. The producers claim that the series offers a "positive" portrait of Anderson, showing the world the cruel violation of his privacy. However, as soon as I tell him, he lets out a quick grimace of sarcasm. "I didn't notice all this positivity," he says. And in his book he writes: "It is unforgivable that even today people think they can profit from such a horrible, not to say criminal, experience." Who knows if their marriage would have survived if that tape had not been stolen. "It's impossible to know. I think it's safe to say I had no alternative.

Lee insisted on always being on set with her; He was waiting for her naked in the caravan and intentionally spoiled her hair and makeup. "A strategy for spending more time together," Anderson writes. "He said it was his. He claimed his 'wife moment.'" Although he was barred from the set after punching the producer in the face, Lee continued to park nearby and climb the fence. One day he collided from behind with the makeup trailer and destroyed it. He then put his wife in the car and drove her home. That night, intending to kill herself, Anderson tried to swallow a bottle of vodka pills, but the alcohol made her vomit and faint on the floor.

From the set to the hospital

The next morning, not seeing her arrive on set, her driver went home to find her lying in a puddle of vomit. He rushed her to the hospital, while her brother Gerry, who was then working as an extra for Beach Watchers, tracked Lee down. Lee burst into tears, while Gerry began yelling at him that he had almost killed his sister, at which point a violent fight broke out. The two were still sticking and struggling on the floor, when a doctor entered the room and announced that Anderson was pregnant. It was like nothing had ever happened, and we all hugged," he writes. Shortly thereafter she miscarried.

All this happened during their first year of love, before the scandal of the tape. In the summer of 1996, their first son, Brandon, was born, followed by Dylan in late 1997. In his 2001 autobiography, Lee gave a different version of his fights: "With Pamela I was on a roll. With the birth of Brandon, I took a back seat... Then, when Dylan was born, I plummeted to third place... And I couldn't accept it." What seems like a case of narcissism and manual coercive control, to Anderson appeared as true love. I said to myself, "God, this man really loves me."

No one tried to dissuade her? "I was in love with him, it would have been useless." And, in a way, it still is. The couple's repeated attempts at reconciliation have never come to fruition, but not long ago Anderson rewatched an old video of a birthday party she had organized for her husband and burst into tears. I thought, "Oh my God, then I really love him!" At that moment I had like an epiphany. "He's married now and I wish him well: I'm certainly not pinning for Tommy or anything like that. But I like to think that our children are the fruit of true love."

Feeling of family

Anderson hoped to have a family again when she married Kid Rock, another musician, in 2006. However, the two separated a few months later. At first, Kid and Tommy were the real stars, but at one point this blonde arrives and attracts attention, stealing the limelight. "I think that's always been a problem in my relationships: it's weird to be with someone who everybody loves. It's like my partners have to share me with a lot of people." It is interrupted. "I think it's also about ownership. When you have all this attention, you are able to take care of yourself and you can leave at any time, men no longer have any kind of control over you. They feel deprived of their manhood. That's when you enter dangerous territory." In 2007, she married Rick Salomon, a professional poker player known for making a porn movie with Paris Hilton. Nearly three months later, he left him after his assistant found a crack pipe on the Christmas tree.

Return to normality

"I am aware of my many marriages; I just wanted to start a family for my children. But I will no longer allow anyone to abuse me; I don't want my kids to think it's normal." After all those famous boyfriends and husbands, Dan Hayhurst, a local builder, was an exception to the norm. "But it was worse than with everyone else. I thought, Oh my God, what am I doing? How did I get to this situation? I opened my eyes and realized it was another failure."

"I have never accused anyone. But I've always been put on trial for something. I've been sued all my life." The autobiography was his children's idea. Brandon, now 26, has worked as a model and actor, participated in a reality show and launched a clothing line; Dylan, now 25, has also worked as a model, working in music and cryptocurrency trading. Their mother's disregard for money makes them furious. "They can't understand that kind of trust in the universe that I have. I've always everyone around me. However, I like that aura of mystery, just to see what happens. I'm always one hundred percent confident that something good is going to happen."

The fascination of theatre

The last 12 months seem to have confirmed this philosophy of his. Early last year, out of nowhere, she was offered the role of Roxie in the Broadway musical Chicago. With no theatrical experience, and with only six weeks of rehearsals before embarking on eight weekly performances for eight weeks, it was an arduous task for her, but also a great triumph. "I really wanted to prove myself. I also wanted to show my kids that I was good at something." During the opening night ovation, she could feel Dylan's gaze fixed on her. "I thought it was probably the first time he looked at me with pride." Brandon was involved in the production of Pamela, A Love Story, a Netflix documentary about his mother's life. Anderson is grateful to him for restoring his finances. "He's an angel, he revolutionized everything, now I'm ready for the rest of my days." After separating from Hayhurst, she has never been single for so long, and "it has been the best time of my life. I think I'm not cut out for relationships anymore."

In the company of Assange

The only man he has some contact with is Julian Assange. Anderson regularly visited the WikiLeaks founder while sheltering in Ecuador's London embassy, writing about "a pretty lively and fun night together under the influence of alcohol." He has never confirmed the true nature of their relationship and, when I ask him if it was a romantic affair, he laughs: "No. Well, nothing serious." Today, Anderson's most difficult relationship is with his mother. He convinced his parents, who are still together, to sell their house and move into his, imagining that "we would all live there together, happy." "But, as they say... snake relatives. Between my mother and I it was a constant coming and going of recriminations." The mother read his autobiography and was not amused. After three hours together, I ask her if anyone has ever treated her with absolute respect. He thinks about it. "Hugh Hefner," he replies.

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