Pamela Anderson is no stranger to envious husbands and lovers, but her ex-husband Tommy Lee’s behavior on the set of Baywatch was out of this world. In an interview with the Guardian, the actress, 55, who will shortly release her memoir, Love Pamela, and Netflix documentary, Pamela: A Love Story, spoke out about the rampant jealousy in her marriage to the Mötley Crüe drummer.
“Tommy was so jealous,” Anderson recalled, noting that the rocker would drive to the set of Baywatch every day in his Ferrari for “wife time.” “I thought that’s what love is.” Anderson played lifeguard C.J. Parker, a role that offered the occasional onscreen love moment. Lee had an upset during a scene in which she had to kiss co-star David Chokachi, who played her love interest, fellow lifeguard Cody Madison, according to her Dailymail.
“I had to kiss David Chokachi but I didn’t tell Tommy,” Anderson wrote at the time, as revealed by the Guardian. “He lost it. He trashed my trailer on the set and put his fist through a cabinet. I apologized for not telling him — lying, as he put it — and told him it wouldn’t happen again.” Lee then drove his car into the makeup trailer and disappeared, according to the actress. Anderson then tried an overdose of alcohol and Advil.
“I wanted it to be over a few times,” she said, adding that Lee confronted her younger brother Gerry in the hospital for ruining his older sister’s life and career. She and Lee separated in 1998 but reconnected briefly a year later. Anderson had numerous more relationships after her connection with Lee, all of which she claims were filled with jealousy. Anderson alleges that her ex-husband, Kid Rock, was so envious of her connection with photographer David LaChapelle that he refused to accept he was gay.
LaChapelle and the artist Daniel Lismore both offered to marry Anderson in an effort to save her from the troublesome men in her life, but she refused. “I said: ‘I can’t do that to my mother. I can’t marry my gay best friends,'” she told the Guardian. “David’s like: ‘We will be together forever. You can do what you want, I can do what I want, and we’ll be this crazy interesting couple.'” She and Kid Rock went on to split by the end of that year.
There were several more notable suitors who attempted to enter the ring. Anderson once missed a call from John F. Kennedy Jr., but she never returned it because she was “too shy.” Sylvester Stallone allegedly offered her a condo and a Porsche in exchange for being “his No. 1 girl,” but Anderson rejected. “And I was like, ‘Does that mean there’s a No 2?'” Anderson is now eager to become self-sufficient. She claims she won’t be dating for long now that she’s living on her own on Vancouver Island.
“I’m really clear on being alone for at least a year. It’s been scary,” she shared. “I haven’t been near my friends hardly at all, either. The capacity to be alone is the capacity to love, right? But this is going to be good for me. I’m going to be able to get through it, because now with the documentary and the book, people will see the whole character. And then — maybe — I can become a human being again.”