Hulu’s miniseries “Pam & Tommy” earned Lily James an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe nomination, but the real Pamela Anderson has no interest in watching the actor’s performance. In a recent interview with the New York Times, Anderson said that not only did she have zero involvement with the series, she also refused to read a letter James sent explaining why she wanted to play the “Baywatch” star.
According to Anderson, James sent her a handwritten letter to let her know she wanted to honor her in “Pam & Tommy.” But the 55-year-old opted not to read it. “It was already hurtful enough the first time,” Anderson said of having her private home video stolen and sold. “It’s like one of those things where you’re going, ‘Really?’ People are still capitalizing off that thing?”
Knowing that Hollywood was going to tell her story with or without her appears to have encouraged Anderson to reclaim the narrative. In addition to releasing a new memoir, “Love, Pamela,” on Jan. 31, the activist and former model also participated in a Netflix documentary about her life, “Pamela, a Love Story,” which will premiere on the same day her book is released. In the trailer for the doc, Anderson shares her candid response to finding out about “Pam & Tommy.”
“I blocked that stolen tape out of my life in order to survive, and now that it’s all coming up again, I feel sick. I want to take control of the narrative for the first time,” she says in the trailer. “Why can’t we be the heroes of our own life story?”
Related: Pamela Anderson Is Ready to “Take Control of the Narrative” With Netflix Doc – Watch the Trailer
While Anderson can’t bring herself to watch the miniseries, James has maintained that her goal in taking on the role of Anderson was to reframe the story from her point of view. “It’s such a confusing, big conversation,” James told Gold Derby of playing a person who is still alive in a July 2022 interview. “I still think about it. I still hope and pray I did her justice.”
She continued, “I eventually just had to trust in knowing my instinct, and my intentions were so good. I wanted to share a story that people maybe weren’t aware of. I wanted to look at how women are treated. I wanted to examine the awful double standard and what these violations really do to people. I felt like I was constantly walking this tightrope as an empathetic human and as someone who feels insecure.”
