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Pamela Anderson says the theft of her sex tape recalled the helplessness and trauma she experienced after being raped at age 12, and attacks high-profile drama series Pam & Tommy for “re-traumatizing” her.
The Hulu series, which stars British actress Lily James as Anderson and Sebastian Stan as her husband Tommy Lee, replayed the launch of intimate scenes for laughs.
She said of the Emmy and Golden Globe nominated show: ‘It gives me nightmares. I did not sleep last night.
And the 55-year-old model and actress added: “I don’t feel like seeing her. I will never see it. I never saw the tape, I’m not going to watch this. Who knows how they will portray it. No one really knows what we were going through at the time. They should have had to have my permission.
Pamela Anderson says the theft of her sex tape triggered memories of feeling powerless after being raped at age 12, and attacks drama series Pam & Tommy for “retraumatizing” her.
‘I texted Tommy the other day and said, ‘How do you feel about everything?’ and he says, ‘Pamela, don’t let it hurt as bad as it did the first time.’
She continued: “I blocked that out of my life to survive, it was actually a coping mechanism, and now that it’s all coming up again, I feel sick to my stomach.” My stomach right now feels like it’s been hit.
‘This feels like when the tape was stolen. Basically, you’re just a thing that belongs to the world.
During their honeymoon in Mexico, the couple filmed a 54-minute home video on Hi8 videotape, mostly just “joking around.” It included about eight minutes of sex.
Pamela and Tommy became the focus of the first celebrity sex tape scandal in the 1990s.
According to a police report filed by the couple in 1995, the tape was in a safe at their home along with weapons: an AK-47 FNC assault rifle, a .45-70 caliber rifle, and a Mossberg stainless steel shotgun, plus of a Rolex, a diamond Cartier watch, and the white bikini Anderson wore to her wedding.
The entire safe was stolen in October 1995 by electrician Rand Gauthier, who had been fired by the couple and believed they owed him money. He was played by comedian Seth Rogen in the movie.
Gauthier says he moved his 6-foot x 3-foot x 4-foot safe out of his garage strapped to a cart in the dead of night after bypassing his security system.
He had no idea of its contents until he opened it, and then he recalled thinking, ‘We put it (the video machine) on and see what it is, and of course, cha-ching! Dollar signs fly before our eyes. But come on, this is the kind of thing people will get killed for.
Anderson said of the Emmy and Golden Globe nominated show: ‘It gives me nightmares. I did not sleep last night. Pictured: Lily James and Sebastian Stan in Pam & Tommy
In March 1996, aware that copies of the VHS were circulating, the couple filed a $10 million civil lawsuit against everyone who thought they might have a copy, including Penthouse magazine. Meanwhile, the tape was being sold on websites and also streamed online by internet wunderkind Seth Warshavsky.
In November 1997, the couple transferred the copyright to him, after which Warshavsky’s Club Love sold access to the tape. Club Love then struck a deal to make VHS copies.
Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee filed a $10 million lawsuit against everyone who thought they might have a copy of the sex tape.
Anderson tells the Netflix documentary Pamela, A Love Story, due out on January 31, that she continues to haunt him.
She said: ‘It was a really happy time in my life, but I didn’t realize that everything was about to change. We had no idea that something in there could hurt us.’
The first hint was when a copy of the VHS tape was sent to them in the mail. Tommy Lee saw it. Anderson said: ‘He says, ‘This is going to be disturbing. This is a VHS tape of us having sex. Oh my God. We realized they have our home videos that are the ‘Oh shit!’ moment.
“We were newlyweds, we were naked all the time and we only filmed each other on vacations and stuff. It was just us being dumb. They found all the nudity they could from different Hi 8 tapes and stitched it together.’
They did not know how to recover the tape and started legal action. Anderson was pregnant with her second child, Dylan.
She said: ‘I didn’t know I was going to be completely humiliated. I remember walking into the courtroom and all the lawyers had these naked pictures of me. They said, ‘You were in Playboy, you have no right to privacy.’
The 55-year-old model said she felt “completely humiliated” after the leak.
‘How do I get questioned about my sexual preferences and my body parts and where I would like to make love when it’s stolen property? It made me feel like I’m such a horrible woman, that I’m just a piece of meat that this shouldn’t mean anything to me because I’m basically a whore.
She adds that it brought back feelings of shame and helplessness that she had experienced when she was raped.
She tells the documentary that when she was 12 she went to a condo owned by a boy her friend had a crush on. The friend went up with the owner and she stayed downstairs with her friend, who was 25 years old. They played backgammon and then he told her that she looked like he needed a massage and he raped her. She didn’t tell anyone.
She tells the documentary: ‘I was very embarrassed by what happened. I felt it was my fault. My mom was always crying for my dad, and she couldn’t bear to hurt him anymore. I didn’t tell her or anyone.
She says of the judicial case: “I don’t know how many days I was deposed but they wanted me to come back and come back.” I just told Tommy, ‘I can’t take it anymore.’
She said: “It was a really happy time in my life, but I didn’t realize that everything was about to change.”
I know some people would have fought to the death over this, but I’m pregnant and I don’t want this to affect the baby. Tommy and I had a miscarriage first and were afraid it would happen again. We weren’t going to put Dylan’s life at risk. He completely devastated me, but I just closed my eyes and signed the papers.
They didn’t make ‘a penny’ from the tape. She adds: “You can’t put a monetary number on the amount of pain and suffering it caused.” Her name became the punchline of a thousand jokes.
She reflects: ‘It was different for me than it was for him. Tommy is a rock star – adds to the crazy image and everything to him. But I knew at that moment that my career was over.
Pamela, A Love Story, is on Netflix since January 31.