Pamela Anderson is continuing to define her own story.
The model and actress sat down with Dax Shepard and Monica Padman on their podcast, Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, to talk about her meteoric rise to fame in the ’90s, the love and trauma that followed, aging, her memoir and more.
Anderson was quickly pigeonholed as archetypal bombshell beauty of the ’90s. She was the poster on teenagers’ bedrooms, the Halloween costume they wore trick or treating, and one of the most prominent faces of American media across the globe.
In conversation with Shepard, he asked her what it is like to have been valued nearly solely for her beauty and what it’s like to have that evolve with age.
Immediately Anderson, 55, responded, “I never felt like I was any kind of great beauty, ever, no. Just a little funny-looking,” before opening up about her excitement to get older.
“I can’t wait to see myself old,” she added.
“I always said I’d recognize myself when I was old in the mirror. I want to let my hair go kind of natural gray, put my little straw hat on, don’t wear makeup. I mean, that’s my comfortable kind of state.”
She expanded, “A lot of women, I think, that kind of are these classic beauties have a really hard time with aging,” but because she has never viewed herself exactly the way major media outlets portrayed her, she thinks it is easier for her.
Explaining, “I always felt a little funny looking, so I don’t think it’s as hard for me, and I don’t want to chase that, and I don’t want to do all the crazy sh*t to myself.”
The star also opened up about the double standard she observes now in how people stylize her. Saying in the ’90s, people thought she was too pretty for makeup, and now, they kind of expect her to wear it.
“When I was wearing makeup before, everyone told me not to wear makeup. Now I’m old, and now I just want to kind of let it happen,” she said.
A point to which Shepard mentioned, in his mind, she is comparable to a figure like Monica Lewinsky or Britney Spears. Someone who faced the “apex” of misogyny in the media, survived it, and is now exposing the industry for its true colors and speaking their truth.
Anderson responded to that comparison, “It’s kind of like a funny moment for me because you do feel like you’ve survived all this. But then there is outpouring of love from this young generation who is doing TikTok Pamela’s.”
The podcast episode comes on the release of her new memoir Love, Pamela and her new documentary Pamela, A Love Story, both of which address the same topics discussed on the podcast and heavily detail the hardships the actress had to face at the hands of the media, the public and men.
Anderson explained in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE what these projects have meant to her, “It’s just one girl’s story of how I made it through: a small-town girl going to Los Angeles and just going through all the wild and crazy adventures I did and then circling back and going home.”
“I had no idea how much anger I had inside, or how therapeutic it was going to be for not just me, but for people around me, like my mother,” She continued. “It’s been a healing process. I’m so happy to share it and hopefully people will be inspired.”
