Pamela Anderson claims Tim Allen flashed her on 'Home Improvement' set — and other revelations from her memoir
Pamela Anderson has a memoir and Netflix documentary out on Jan. 31 — and the secrets she spilled in them are starting to leak.
Anderson's book, Love, Pamela, is the story of her life, "beginning to end, my first memory to my last," the 55-year-old model and actress said. Ahead of its publication by HarperCollins next week, some stories have been seeping out, and we've rounded up the biggest ones.
Anderson claims Tim Allen flashed her on Home Improvement set
Variety obtained an early copy of Anderson's memoir and in it she claims Tim Allen flashed her on her first day on the set of Home Improvement. It was 1991 and 23-year-old Anderson — who shot to stardom after posing for Playboy — landed a recurring role, her first major TV gig, as the show's first Tool Time girl, Lisa.
"On the first day of filming, I walked out of my dressing room, and Tim was in the hallway in his robe," she wrote. "He opened his robe and flashed me quickly — completely naked underneath. He said it was only fair, because he had seen me naked. Now we’re even. I laughed uncomfortably."
Allen denied Anderson's account, telling the outlet, "No, it never happened. I would never do such a thing."
Anderson appeared on the show, which became one of the highest-rated sitcoms, for its first two seasons. Her character assisted Tim (Allen's character) and Al (played by Richard Karn) on their show within a show, Tool Time, and would famously kick it off with the line: "Does everybody know what time it is?"
Anderson won the role, which was first offered to Ashley Judd, and appeared on over 20 episodes. However, she left in 1993 following her casting the year before as C.J. Parker on Baywatch, a role that led to international stardom. She later returned as a guest star on Home Improvement in Season 6.
The Tommy Lee turbulence — and infamous tape
Anderson sets the record straight about many relationships, including her most famous one with rocker Tommy Lee, who became her first husband. In an excerpt obtained by People, she wrote, "My relationship with Tommy may have been the only time I was ever truly in love." However, she claimed the romance was "ruined" after their honeymoon tape was stolen and released as a sex tape. "It ruined lives, starting with our relationship..."
But the M?tley Crüe drummer, whom she married on a beach in Cancun in 1995 (infamously wearing a white bikini), had a temper and jealously issues. According to the Guardian, she wrote about how he trashed her Baywatch trailer when he found out she had a love scene with David Chokachi, who played her love interest, fellow lifeguard Cody Madison. He was a domineering presence on the set, showing up in his Ferrari each day for what he called "wife time." Anderson said, "I thought that's what love is."
Anderson also detailed an incident in which she claimed Lee rammed his car into the makeup trailer on Baywatch and then fled. She wrote that she tried to overdose on vodka and Advil. Asked by the Guardian if it was a suicide attempt, she said, "I wanted it to be over a few times."
Anderson also detailed Lee's arrest for spousal abuse in 1998. She was holding 7-week-old Dylan in her arms while 1-year-old Brandon played nearby, and Lee, who apparently, didn't like being "third now instead of first," told her, "'I want my wife back.'" She told him to "grow up" and give her "some f***ing help around here ... It's not about you anymore." Lee "ripped Brandon off me and threw me and Dylan into a wall," she wrote. She called 911 and he was arrested, later serving six months in jail over the incident. Anderson filed for divorce the day after his arrest, calling that time "the hardest, lowest, most difficult point of my life. I was crushed. I still couldn't believe that the person I loved the most was capable of what had happened that night. We were both devastated, but I had to protect my babies." While the divorce was finalized that year, Anderson and Lee had an on-off thing well into the 2000s.
Anderson dishes on her other marriages
The V.I.P. star admits she didn't exactly get it right with her other husbands — Kid Rock, Rick Salomon, John Peters and Dan Hayhurst. According to the Guardian, she claimed Salomon, who she married twice (2007-2008) and? ??(2014-2015), "ended up being a big drug addict," claiming she "found a crack pipe in the Christmas tree." It's noted he said then it wasn't his and still maintains it wasn't his.
Anderson also wrote about meeting Peters — whom she married in 2020 but never made legal — in the late 1980s. She said he introduced himself by ticking off his film achievements – producing Rain Man and Batman among others — and put her up in a house next door to Ronald Reagan’s in L.A.'s Bel Air. He sent her daily gifts — from Cartier, Tiffany and others fancy stores — that were dropped off by chauffeur. She compared the situation to Pretty Woman. She wrote that Peters asked for "head rubs and for me to tickle his neck, but no more than that," but she she eventually moved out at the advice of a friend.
Sylvester Stallone asked her to be his No. 1 girl
Anderson also writes about being offered a condo and Porsche by Sylvester Stallone. Stealing a page from Hugh Hefner apparently, Stallone told Anderson she could be his No. 1. girl. "And I was like: 'Does that mean there's a No 2?'" she wrote, allegedly declining the role. Stallone's lawyer Marty Singer told Yahoo Entertainment that Stallone responded, "I never made any portion of the statement. It's completely untrue."
During that era, Stallone famously had an on-off thing going with now-wife Jennifer Flavin — with relationships with Janice Dickinson and Angie Everhart in between. He ended up marrying Flavin in 1997, and while she filed for divorce last year, they have since gotten back together.
Anderson also got candid about her other suitors, including relationships with Mario Van Peebles, Scott Baio, David Charvet, Dean Cain and Bret Michaels. She said she would have married Julian Assange — the activist and her friend — if it would have got him out of jail.
She also wrote about famous men who begged to meet her, including Fidel Castro, the late Cuban president. She also claimed she missed a call from America's prince, John F. Kennedy Jr. and was "too shy" to call him back.
Childhood trauma revisited
Anderson told the New York Times her book covers "my first memory to my last" — and it includes a troubled childhood. She grew up in Ladysmith, British Columbia, where she returned to live in 2020, and her father's drinking and her mother making attempts to leave him made for an, at times, "unbearable" adolescence.
There was a lot of abuse — starting with a babysitter molesting her for three or four years. At age 12, she was raped by a 25-year-old. Her early relationships suffered as a result — and some were abusive. A high school boyfriend once kicked her out of a moving car. Another boyfriend let his friends assault her in a back seat. "I didn't tell anybody," she wrote. "I just blocked it out."
In her early 20s, she was at a football game when cameras spotted her in a Labatt's beer T-shirt, and put her on the Jumbotron. She went '80s viral — and Playboy called. She rushed to Hollywood, she said, to pose for the magazine, going on to earn the record for most covers by any person. She said posing nude was to take back control of her sexuality. "It was my choice," she wrote. However, it also "gave some people the impetus, sadly, to treat me without respect."
Anderson's book and the Netflix doc, Pamela, A Love Story, drop the same day. For the latter — which will be just as dishy — she turned over years of her journals and unedited video archive for the project. The doc is produced by her elder son, Brandon Thomas Lee, under director Ryan White.
If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, call 911, or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.