Pamela Anderson is setting the record straight

The renewed interest in pop culture figures from the 90s and early 2000s has been a peak mood recently. From the multiple films about Britney Spears’s conservatorship drama, to documentaries that have explored the harm done by the hungry media and fans to figures like Princess Diana, Amy Winehouse, and Whitney Houston — culturally iconic women are finally getting their stories more justly told. Pamela Anderson is “not a victim,” she says, “but a survivor and alive to tell the real story” — exactly what she’ll be doing in her own Netflix documentary.

Hulu recently attempted to exploit nostalgia through its new drama series Pam & Tommy, which explores the heist to steal her sex tape with then-husband Tommy Lee and the aftermath of its exposure that dominated tabloids in 1995. Pam & Tommy stars Lily James as Anderson, Sebastian Stan as Lee, and Seth Rogan and Nick Offerman as the pervs who took the tape. Anderson has reportedly rebuked the project, with a source telling E! News, "Pam will never watch the Pam & Tommy Hulu series. The burglary was a living nightmare. This burglary is the only thing in her life she would erase from her life. It haunts her to this day. ... It was a violation having this tape taken. This was a very traumatic time in her life. And it's shocking that they are recreating it.”

Much like how Paris Hilton took back control of her own narrative in her 2020 documentary This Is Paris, it seems that Anderson will be telling her truth in the new unnamed project. Her note, written on Netflix stationary and published to social media, begins “My life: A thousand imperfections, a million misperceptions. Wicked, wild and lost. Nothing to live up to — I can only surprise you.” The note is signed with a kiss, perhaps a nod to her signature sweetness that was poisoned by the infamous tape. But soon, we’ll have her side of the story, and another heroine of iconic 90s chic will be vindicated.