Best of the Year: Pamela Anderson on the Mike Hosking Breakfast

Iconic actress, Pamela Anderson, told Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking ahead of the release of her memoir Love, Pamela and her documentary Pamela, a Love Story that was a “relief” to be able to tell her side of a story that has been told by many others over the years. Anderson catapulted onto our screens with Baywatch and Home Improvement and her career has featured more than 25 movies, dozens of TV shows and relationships with the likes of Tommy Lee and Julian Assange. “I never felt like I was ever going to get the chance to do it because I always felt so different, kind of like an observer looking at somebody else’s life and the people that knew me always thought that one day I would tell it how it was. “It’s such a relief. I haven’t been this happy in a long, long time. I feel like the weight of the world is off my shoulders.” Anderson says that while the memoir has taken some time to be finished and released, the timing was fortuitous as her documentary was released at the same time as her book. “I said here’s the keys to the archives, I don’t know what I’ve saved, what’s up there, but I know there’s no dead bodies up there, just have at it and don’t tell me anything, I’ll see it at the premiere.” Anderson told Mike Hosking she wanted to bring the audience along with her and felt not wearing makeup would be the most authentic way to do so. “I just said film it, I don’t care. I’m going to take everything off and I want to go through this journey with people. “If you like me at my worst, you can like me at my best, maybe. I thought I’m just a human being and this is what I look like.” Love, Pamela is out now. Photo / Supplied While Pamela is a pop culture icon to many, there are clips in the documentary in which she suffers horrendous treatment at the hands of the likes of David Letterman, but says it was moments like that that have made her who she is today. “I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m doing now,” she says “I wouldn’t be able to write a book, I feel like everything happened for a reason and I don’t feel like a victim at all, I feel like I’ve had this really incredible opportunity now to be who I really am.” It’s this reflection that Anderson says she is grateful for. “I kind of look at myself and think, wow, you got through a lot, I got through a lot of things and to still have joy and love and forgiveness and all of that good stuff.” When Julian Assange, activist and founder of WikiLeaks, was introduced to her the pair struck up a relationship in which Anderson would bring him vegan meals during his time at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. She told Mike Hosking she is saddened by his experience and hopes for a resolution in the form of a pardon by US President Joe Biden. “This psychological torture that he’s going through, it’s a waste of a beautiful mind and I don’t know what’s going to happen, I hope Biden pardons him.” Being 55, single and not knowing what the future holds may be frightening for some, but Anderson says it is liberating. “This is the sexiest time of my life, the most romantic time in my life,’ says “the capacity to be alone is the capacity to love, you have to know how to be alone and how to love yourself.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.