Pamela Anderson on Her New Netflix Documentary, Starring in That Jacquemus Campaign, and Possibly Joining the ‘White Lotus’ Cast

Pamela Anderson’s life doesn’t read like a typical fairytale—far from it, in fact. But as a hopeless romantic, she still believes in them, and as a dyed-in-the-wool storyteller (“I’m Finnish—it’s in my blood”), Anderson can’t help but spin straw into gold, reflecting on the highs and lows of her life. 

The 55-year-old actor, model, and activist is bracing for the release of her Netflix documentary, Pamela, A Love Story, and new memoir Love, Pamela, both out on January 31. Each one charts Anderson’s rise from a small-town girl in Canada to a ’90s sex symbol in Hollywood, becoming a Playboy pin-up, embodying the California dream on Baywatch, and fighting the perils of fame, including, yes, that stolen sex tape. 

“It had to be all or nothing,” Anderson tells Vogue over the phone from her home in Ladysmith, British Columbia, where she grew up. “Since I am in public and people have access to so many private moments of life, the best thing I can do is double down and tell my story right from day one. I’m not trying to push a narrative. I’m not trying to change anyone’s perspective. I’m not trying to change anyone’s idea of me. It’s just a life story.”

While stripping back her full-face bombshell facade—eschewing smoky eyes and frosted pink lips for a bare face and ice blue gaze framed by her Scandinavian blonde lengths—Anderson gets candid in the documentary with a series of recent interviews, decades’ worth of never-before-seen camcorder footage, and journal entries read aloud by an actor. “I just opened my archives, gave them the keys to the safe with all my diaries in it, and just said, ‘Have at it,’” she says. Anderson pulls back the curtains on her painful childhood, including the traumas she survived as a young girl, her turbulent love life, becoming a mother (she shares two sons, Brandon Thomas and Dylan Jagger, with her ex-husband Tommy Lee), and rebuilding her life and career after the fallout from an unthinkable invasion of privacy. She also opens up about the sexism and misogyny she faced in the wake of the sex tape, including interviews that were often reduced to “boyfriends and boobs” by predominantly male journalists.