Pamela Anderson earned widespread backlash in November 2017 due to an interview with “Today” in which she appeared to victim blame the survivors of the #MeToo movement. Anderson told interviewer Megyn Kelly at the time: “It was common knowledge that certain producers or certain people in Hollywood are people to avoid, privately. You know what you’re getting into if you’re going into a hotel room alone.”
Does Anderson stand by that statement nearly six years later? “I could even take it a step further,” she recently told Ronan Farrow during a new discussion for Interview Magazine.
“My mother would tell me — and I think this is the kind of feminism I grew up with — it takes two to tango,” Anderson said, attempting to explain the rationale behind her controversial #MeToo comment. “Believe me, I’ve been in many situations where it’s like, ‘Come in here little girl, sit on the bed.’ But my mom would say, ‘If someone answers the door in a hotel robe and you’re going for an interview, don’t go in. But if you do go in, get the job.'”
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“That’s a horrible thing to say but that’s how I was,” Anderson continued. “I skated on the edges of destruction, I just had this sense of value and self-worth. But I think a lot of people don’t have that or they weren’t taught that. Thank god for the #MeToo movement because things have changed and people are much more careful and respectful.”
Anderson has been making the press rounds in support of her new memoir, “Love, Pamela,” and her new Netflix documentary, “Pamela, a Love Story.” In both projects, Anderson opens up in detail about surviving sexual abuse and harassment in both her personal and professional lives.
Variety previously reported that Anderson’s memoir includes the allegation that Tim Allen flashed his penis to her on the set of “Home Improvement.” Allen has denied the incident.
“I totally believe Pamela because I think she’s always honest in everything — about her own shortcomings, but also about other people’s,” Anderson’s documentary director Ryan White later told Variety. “That was our conversation at the beginning of this [process]. She was, ‘I spent so much of my life protecting other people. And I’m not I’m trying not to do that as much anymore.’”
