The Biggest Bombshells Dropped In Netflix's Pamela, A Love Story

"The world opens when I write," young Anderson describes in a diary entry from her younger years. Anderson, witty and frank about her past experiences, grants filmmakers full access to her diaries and journals, kept from childhood through adulthood. She has a powerful emotional reaction to these letters, and an actress reads many entries in voiceover in order for Anderson to avoid some of the pain reliving memories can bring.

Anderson reveals she has always been a writer and explains that her entries started as a way to possibly escape her loving but turbulent home life in Ladysmith, BC — and also to have a private, protected space after her own was violated for years by a trusted babysitter. The abuser swore Anderson to secrecy. Anderson admits she once tried to kill her abuser by stabbing her in the heart with a candy cane pen. When her abuser died in a car accident just a day after Anderson told her she wished her dead, Anderson says "I thought I killed her with my magical mind, and I couldn't tell anybody."

Though there's no one way someone is drawn to writing, it's hard not to think this early betrayal kicked Anderson's imagination into coping high gear. Regardless of what first spurred Anderson to put pen to paper, to date, Anderson has written multiple books, some fiction, and released a memoir, "Love, Pamela," in 2023.

Talk show hosts (especially David Letterman and Jay Leno) used Anderson as joke target practice for years. Hateful humor was de rigueur in the '90s pop cultural landscape, and so were wildly invasive questions. Much like Madonna in "Body of Evidence," Anderson was regularly grilled on late-night shows for info on her body parts and sexual tastes.

Even before her stolen sex tape was released, talk show hosts took her work as a Playboy model as permission to ask invasive questions. A favorite pre-sex-tape question was about whether or not her breasts were real or implants. Anderson is noticeably uncomfortable in archival footage with Leno, for example, and jokes (not so far off the mark) that he is torturing her. "I think it's kind of inappropriate to ask women those kinds of questions," Anderson insists in the documentary. "I think there has to be some line that people don't cross."

In some footage shown from an appearance on "Letterman," the host shocks Anderson by asking if her kids have seen pictures of her in Playboy. There is a commonplace contempt underneath this line of questioning — it's obviously objectifying, and, Anderson says in the doc, boring. "I don't see how it's so interesting," she says. "I always hoped something would come along where I would do something which would be more interesting to people than my body."

Searching for true love is a major theme in Anderson's life and "Pamela, a Love Story." Even in her early "Baywatch" days, Anderson hoped to find her Prince Charming. She gave love a try with Mario Van Peebles, Scott Baio, and co-star Kelly Slater, who she describes as a "sweetheart," a "heartbreaker" and a free spirit, saying, "You couldn't get your hands around him. But you don't own anybody, nobody owns anybody."

This poignant moment of truth is almost immediately undercut when Anderson laughs and recalls a time when Sylvester Stallone offered her "a Porsche and a condo to be his number one girl." She declined if that meant there was a "number two" girl. According to Anderson, Stallone told her "You're in Hollywood now, that's the best offer you're gonna get!"

While Stallone has denied Anderson's claim (just like Tim Allen denies flashing her on the set of "Home Improvement"), there is no argument that Anderson then and now just wants to really be in real love — and nothing less. It's perhaps best Anderson never found true love with Baio for a few reasons, of course — she recounts in the documentary that his father was horrible to her and told his son not to let her drive his Mercedes because she was only worth a Hyundai.

Anderson drops a major bombshell about her infamous stolen sex tape in "Pamela, a Love Story" — and that is that it's mostly a "nudity" tape of her and Lee being "goofballs" on their honeymoon. The documentary is full of similar material of Anderson and Lee hanging out in hotel rooms, on the beach, and later, with their young family.

Anderson admits they "filmed everything back then," and that she was happy to capture the early moments of their romantic life together. She says the infamous sex tape is a home movie of the couple's honeymoon in Lake Mead, where they spent most of their time naked and joking around on a boat. They kept the tape in a safe along with other treasures and discovered the entire safe had been stolen after they had construction work done on their home.

Their son Brandon had just been born, and Anderson claims it was the happiest time of their lives — until the safe was stolen, and later, the tape was used against them. Anderson becomes visibly agitated as she lives through the memory of the safe and its contents, saying, "We had no idea there was something in there that could hurt us."

While Anderson tried to sue those who would profit from her stolen sex tape with Lee, she admits that defense attorneys for Internet Entertainment Group plastered the courtroom with naked images of her and put her sex life on trial. Anderson says she felt completely humiliated, and that the "lawyers said, 'you're in Playboy. You have no right to privacy.'"

It is truly wild that a sex tape and other property were stolen from a private residence and sold, but no one involved in the theft or sale faced any legal accountability. Anderson, however, describes her depositions as so brutal, she feared she would miscarry her second child. She had suffered a miscarriage due to exhaustion before, and in order to avoid the same grim fate, signed away her video rights to IEG and dropped the case.

When it comes to a woman making decisions about her own body, choice and consent shouldn't be controversial subjects. Anderson insists, "It was my choice to be in the magazine. Playboy was empowering for me. But in this case [the tape], it felt like a rape." Anderson also identifies this moment as a turning point in her career, and "the degradation of any image I had." She feels the tape damaged any chance she had at a real career, so "I had to make a career out of the pieces left."

While Anderson and Lee had an intense love affair spanning years, Anderson left the musician when he became violent to her after the birth of their two kids. She details some harrowing experiences and alludes to others in "Pamela, a Love Story." She arches an eyebrow and in heartbreaking deadpan admits, there were "some red flags." She details how Lee would disrupt the "Baywatch" set while she was filming, and he would watch her work. She initially thought this was cute, but then Lee trashed her trailer after becoming enraged that she shared a (scripted, on-screen) kiss with her co-star.

Anderson, with extreme compassion for her ex, admits he may have gone through "a bit of postpartum" after the birth of their second child. Lee became violent with her in a specific event in 1998, and Anderson says she "called 9-1-1, and left the receiver off" because she no longer recognized her husband. Lee was charged with abuse, and Anderson filed for divorce. She admits she ultimately had to bifurcate the divorce because Lee refused to sign the papers.

Anderson admits to great heartache and joy throughout "Pamela, a Love Story." While she reveals to her sons that in many ways she's never gotten over their dad, or admits to herself that she needs a love story with herself instead of seeking it elsewhere, she is also clearly deeply bonded to her family, and invested in making moves. Anderson is in her 50s in the documentary, but just like all of the hardships she faced before, she won't let ageism stop her now — especially when Broadway sends for her.

Anderson is asked to star in a limited run of the hit musical "Chicago." While she is thrilled, Anderson is also a little terrified about learning intense choreography and singing. But when she finally takes the stage, she brings the house down — and there is clearly a lot of experience she can draw from to play Roxie Hart.

The film ends on a successful, hopeful note, and one can't help but recall a diary entry from Anderson's younger years, in which she vowed to herself, "this is my time to shine, not as a sex symbol, but as an actress." Sex symbol and stage star, stay tuned for what creative challenge Anderson accepts next.