Pamela Anderson opened up about her early days as a Playboy model to Martha Stewart.
During an interview for Elle’s January 2025 digital issue, Stewart spoke to Anderson about her recent film, “The Last Showgirl,” and her Oscar snub.
While diving into her career, Anderson and Stewart took a trip down memory lane to when they were first introduced to fame.
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“Back to the movie. I can’t stop thinking about that man in the audition scene. … It’s happened to all of us. Those auditions that are just so ridiculous and so heartless. You get the real feeling of that there,” Stewart said, referencing Anderson’s latest film.
Pamela replied, “I like that she doesn’t take no for an answer. She almost walks away but then turns back and says, ‘What didn’t you like about it?’ As much as she wore her heart on her sleeve in reassessing her life choices, she fought back.”
“I had an experience like that when I was very young, going on go-sees as a model. They asked all the girls to bring bikinis, and after my interview with about 15 guys sitting around a table, they said, ‘Go get into your bikini,” Stewart said.
“And I said, ‘Does the part require a bikini?’ And the guy said, ‘No, but we have you here, so we might as well look at you.’ And I just walked out of the room. I was maybe 17 [years old] at the time, but I just wouldn’t put up with that crap.
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“That’s the way I’ve been all along, I just wouldn’t put up with it,” Stewart said. “When you see that other girls put up with it because they need the money or they need the job, it’s a difficult situation. I think that might be getting better after all these years.”
Anderson sympathized with Stewart and explained that her mother was a big reason she decided to pose for Playboy in October 1989.
“It’s hard to navigate a business that is based on physical beauty and also naïveté. You’re in this business, and you want to please people. And you have a gut feeling that maybe it’s not the right thing to do, and you can get yourself in these dangerous situations,” Anderson said.
“I was such a shy young girl, if you can believe it — I wanted to do anything to stop being shy. When the Playboy cover [opportunity] came up, my mom said, ‘Do it.’ I didn’t know what it was going to lead to, but then it led to this wild and crazy life,” Anderson concluded.
In 2018, Anderson discussed her mother’s influence on her Playboy career.
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“It was the woman’s choice to be in the magazine. It was my choice to be in the magazine, I wasn’t made to do anything I was uncomfortable with. My first reaction was no, and I talked to mother. And she said, ‘Why not? Get out of this small town, go to Los Angeles. How exciting,'” Anderson told the Associated Press at the time.
“I’d never been on a plane before, I’d never gotten out of my little town and I was scared to death by it. I overcame a lot of my painful shyness. That’s for sure.”
Now that her Playboy days are behind her, Anderson is living a peaceful life in Ladysmith in British Columbia. The “Baywatch” star decided to get back into acting as well as gardening and moving her parents onto her property.
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“The Last Showgirl,” which debuted in 2024, gave Anderson Golden Globe and SAG nominations but not an Oscar nod.
“Congratulations on the Golden Globe nomination. I don’t think you got an Oscar,” Stewart told Anderson.
Pamela replied, “No, no nomination for the Oscar, but I couldn’t even imagine that. I did get a SAG nomination, which is really exciting and … all of this is just unexpected and exciting. I always say the win is in the work. I got to do something I really love, and I needed to do that for my soul.”
