As “Pamela: A Love Story” approaches its January 31 premiere on Netflix, Pamela Anderson has had to talk about last year’s Hulu limited series, “Pam & Tommy.” And while the actress and former Playboy model accepts that Hulu made the show, she still considers the crew behind the series “assholes” for making it without her involvement or permission.
EW reports (via a new interview with Variety) that Anderson opened up about her take on the hit show from last year. And her message to its creators is pretty clear: “You still owe me a public apology,” she told them through Variety. Anderson continued saying that Hulu going ahead with “Pam & Tommy” without her consent was “salt on the wound,” and she has no plans ever to watch the series.
But Anderson’s grudge doesn’t extend to its stars Sebastian Stan or Lily James. “I think it’s hard to play somebody when you don’t know the whole picture,” Anderson explained. “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 jut really crushing to me.”
For their part, the “Pam & Tommy” crew don’t share Anderson’s view and defend the series as a kind of feminist statement. “I felt, for us, what we’re trying to do is really change the narrative and your perspective of what happened,” director Craig Gillespie told EW last year. “And this felt like such an opportunity to do that and to be able to look at the story through today’s lens and the outrageousness and just the atrocities that happened. I felt that hopefully, it would change people’s point of view on that.” For those unfamiliar with the “Pam & Tommy” saga, the limited series follows Anderson’s courtships with rockstar Tommy Lee, which involved a sex tape of the couple’s getting stolen by electrician/handyman Rand Gauthier, protrayed in the series by Seth Rogen.
Lee doesn’t share Anderson’s antipathy toward “Pam & Tommy,” but he reached out to his ex-wife when the show debuted with a letter. “Don’t let this hurt you like it did the first time,” Lee wrote. Anderson said that Lee “heard through the kids that I was kind of struggling with the idea of bringing this all up again.” And while Anderson doesn’t approve of her portrayal in the show, she doesn’t think Lee gets off easy either. “I don’t think he was portrayed kindly,” she continued, “I just know that I refuse to watch it.”
While Anderson loathes the existence of “Pam & Tommy,” the show was one of several big hits for Hulu last year. In fact, it fared so well with critics and audiences that it nabbed 10 Emmy nominations in total. But even with the show’s success and Lily James writing a letter to Anderson asking for the two to meet, the ex-“Baywatch” star doesn’t want to revisit the past. “It was already hurtful enough the first time,” Anderson told The New York Times. “It’s like one of those things where you’re going, ‘Really? People are still capitalizing off that thing?'”
Watch a trailer for “Pamela: A Love Story” below. The doc premieres on Netflix on January 31.