I’ve never posed for Playboy, been married to a rock star, or gone to work in a red, one-piece bathing suit, yet there I sat watching the Netflix documentary, Pamela, a Love Story, and listening to a makeup-free Pamela Anderson rehash what some of us thought was a glamorous Hollywood life, and thought, “I understand.”

As a Manhattan essayist who also writes women’s fiction, I totally identified with Pam’s desire to tell her own story on film as well as in print with the accompanying book, Love, Pamela. And much to my surprise, a whole lot more.

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Parallel Lives?

In the ’80s, I was as anxious to leave my outer borough for the Bronx’s more upscale sister, Manhattan, as Pam was to get the hell out of Canada to make her way in Los Angeles. I landed a low-paying, entry-level job in advertising, where I would pay my career dues. She took her clothes off for Playboy, made videos for the company, and became a Playmate yet saw hardly any money. Yes, young, desperate women don’t always make the most astute financial decisions. Despite getting “Me Too-ed” on the regular, we both took solace in the fact that we were doing jobs we were good at.

With the work box checked off, it was time to find love. The Baywatch lifeguard was convinced by a friend to attend a party with some guys at an L.A. club. I was invited to a house party in Brooklyn. She and I both had the same response: “What could go wrong?” At each of those events, we met the men we’d eventually marry. Granted, Neil, my husband of 40 years, didn’t introduce himself by licking my face as Tommy Lee did to Pamela, but every guy has his own “move.”

Despite getting “Me Too-ed” on the regular, we both took solace in the fact that we were good at our jobs.

At this point in the doc, the V.I.P. star and I digressed. Neil and I got married seven years after we met. Pam and Tommy tied the knot four days after the second time they hung out, with her thinking “Lee” was his middle name, prompting her to ask what her new last name was. (“I thought it was Tommy Lee Jones or something.” “No, that’s somebody else.”) Unlike mine, her marriage didn’t last due to the stressful publicity surrounding the sex tape that disappeared from her home, which reaped millions for its distributor, and Tommy’s mounting jealousy whenever his wife had to share an onscreen kiss with another actor, which led to physical abuse.

Our unions both produced two children each, and like the Barbed Wire star, I wondered if I could maintain my career while taking care of my son and daughter. She and I managed to stay relevant in our respective workplaces but made our kids the priority. Her oldest son Brandon is two years younger than my son Luke, and he was a producer of the documentary. He and his brother Dylan encouraged their mother to do her projects so her truth could hopefully put to rest the lies that have been making headlines for decades.

The most touching part of the film for me was when Pam watches a little of the Hulu original movie Pam & Tommy and gets emotional. Her go-to, feel-good behavior is to take a walk outside with her son. Whenever Luke comes home for a visit, we grab a coffee and take a head-clearing walk around our Upper East Side Manhattan neighborhood to catch up.

Not So Judgy After All

I’ll confess: Back in the day, I judged Pamela Anderson based on her Marilyn Monroe-clone appearance. Not taken seriously as an actress? What do you expect when you pose naked? Divorced? What do you expect when you marry a rock god with “mayhem” tattooed across his solar plexus? Always feeling sexualized? What do you expect when you choose revealing clothing? 

I think if given the chance, others will find a way to also relate to Pamela.

I’m sorry I did that, and I’m glad I watched the film with the intention of also reading its print companion. It’s taken four decades, but I finally see her as not just a regular person, but a very nice, often regretful, quite anxious person just trying to do the best she can.

I think if given the chance, others will find a way to also relate to Pamela. She is the product of childhood sexual abuse by a female babysitter and rape by a grown man when she was 12. Her mother encouraged Pam to “go for it” when her daughter was approached to appear in Playboy. (Bad mom? You decide.) She still talks about the humiliating sex tape incident as though it happened yesterday, and in a sense it did, since the release of Pam & Tommy, which is like a rock ‘n’ roll whodunit trying to find out how the distributors got a hold of it.

The Truth, Finally

The most heartbreaking confession happens after the film gives a rundown of the men she’d married, often for a short period of time, after she divorced the Mötley Crüe drummer. Anderson says she kept marrying, trying to capture the intense love she felt for her sons’ father, but with whom she could never live again.

I believe her now.

I’m glad Pamela Anderson finally put her truth out there. Because she pre-dated the Time’s Up movement by decades, we never knew about the harassment (i.e., Tim Allen), the lecherousness (i.e., Sly Stallone), or the exploitation (i.e., Hugh Hefner) she experienced, not if she ever wanted to work again anyway. And who would have believed her? I believe her now.

Like all of us whose skin can no longer be referred to as dewy, and whose stars are no longer on the rise, Pam has nothing to lose and a chance to gain the empathy and respect that eluded her the first time around.

Read More: What She Said: Paulina Porizkova’s Stark Courage

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Lorraine Duffy Merkl is the author of several novels, most recently The Last Single Woman in New York City (Heliotrope Books).