Pamela Anderson said that her ex-husband Tommy Lee attempted to comfort her as she struggled with renewed attention brought on by Hulu’s Pam & Tommy, telling Variety that he wrote to her, “Don’t let this hurt you like it did the first time.”
Anderson and Lee were married from 1995 to 1998 and have two children together. Their sex tape was stolen in 1995 and distributed on the internet, and Anderson has been vocal about the psychological stress caused by that theft, as well as her anxiety at having to relive that moment during the press cycle around Pam & Tommy.
“It was just shocking,” Anderson said of the Hulu series. “Tommy probably thought it was funny. I remember Tommy writing me a note saying, ‘Don’t let this hurt you like it did the first time,’ because he had heard through the kids that I was kind of struggling with the idea of bringing this all up again. I don’t think he was portrayed kindly. I just know that I refuse to watch it.”
She did see billboards advertising the series, and commented, “It just looked like a Halloween costume to me.” However, she reserved her judgment for the creators of the series and not the two stars, Sebastian Stan and Lily James. “I think it’s hard to play somebody when you don’t know the whole picture,” she explained. “I said to Netflix, ‘I’d love to invite Lily [James], to the premiere of the [new documentary Pamela, a love story],’” Anderson said. “I’ve got nothing against Lily James. I think that she’s a beautiful girl and she was just doing the job. But the idea of the whole thing happening was just really crushing for me.”
Anderson said in the trailer for her documentary, “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.” It drops on Netflix January 31st.
Also on January 31st, Anderson will release her new memoir, Love, Pamela. One of the early revelations from the book is her allegation that Tim Allen flashed her on the set of Home Improvement.