What Pamela Anderson's Exes Have Said About Her

This article includes discussions of domestic abuse.

For a significant chunk of the 1990s, Pamela Anderson was one of the most famous women in the world. After posing for Playboy and a recurring role on "Home Improvement," Anderson's starring role as C.J. Parker on "Baywatch" made her an international sensation. At its peak, the show pulled in more than a billion viewers each week, making it — by far — the most-viewed television show of all time. Much of that success was thanks to Anderson's star power, embodying a certain brand of '90s American exceptionalism as she raced around the beaches of Southern California in slow motion.

Her television stardom meant there was an incredible amount of attention paid to Anderson's personal life, and her dating history became fodder for gossip around the world. She's had a series of high-profile relationships while in the public spotlight, dating everyone from rock stars to co-stars to behind-the-scenes creatives to above-the-line talent.

These days, Anderson doesn't try to date much. In her memoir "Love, Pamela" (via People), she wrote that her focus is on herself and her family. "I light my candles, have my music playing. I have my piano," she wrote. "I'm sure it would be lovely if someone else was in my life and wanted the same thing but I've just never met them." While tabloids probably can't expect new stories about the "Barb Wire" star in love anytime soon, she has plenty of exes, and most of them have not been shy about spilling details of their relationships to the press. Read on to learn what Pamela Anderson's exes have said about her.

Pamela Anderson rose to prominence in early 1990, when she was named Playboy's Playmate of the Month. She reportedly met "Charles in Charge" star Scott Baio soon after at a party at the Playboy Mansion, and the two dated for the next several years as Anderson's career took off. Baio's father was apparently less than pleased with the relationship, as Anderson explained in her Netflix documentary "Pamela, A Love Story" (via PureWow). "He was really mad because I would drive Scott's Mercedes and he said I wasn't worth a Mercedes yet. That I had to drive something like a Hyundai," Anderson recalled. "He was not very nice to me."

Baio's father's disapproval doesn't seem to have mattered much to the "Happy Days" star. In 2007, he told People what that time in his life had been like. "I never did drugs and I can't really drink because I have zero tolerance for alcohol, so my vice became women," he said, explaining that he went a very different direction than his parents, who had been married for decades. "I started doing it because I was a normal heterosexual guy and I could," he said. "Then it snowballs to where it's all about the game."

At a certain point in their relationship, that snowball led Baio into the shower with Anderson. "Don't ever take a shower with a woman, because you'll probably end up proposing to her," he said. "I literally had an out-of-body experience ... There was a lot of soap." Anderson turned him down, and they never walked down the aisle together. Years later, "Baywatch" star Nicole Eggert went public with accusations about Baio stemming from the time she was on "Charles in Charge."

The third season of "Baywatch" experienced significant cast turnover, as original couple Billy Warlock and Erika Eleniak left the show. Instead, producers brought on Pamela Anderson as C.J. Parker, pairing her with a number of other new characters, like David Charvet's character Matt Brody.

While Matt dated someone else on the show, Charvet and Anderson were together in real life. In fact, producers were looking at someone else for the role, but then Anderson tagged along when Charvet auditioned for the show. Creator Michael Berk said (via Daily Star), "She was cute, charming, and sexy. We asked her to put on a bathing suit. She took off her clothes and we didn't know what was going on — but she had a bathing suit underneath!" He said they were unaware that she and Charvet were dating in real life, but that they broke up not long into filming the show.

Though Charvet hasn't spoken much about what that relationship was like, he conducted a mock interview on a French talk show (via YouTube), pretending to be Anderson talking about him. When the host asked Charvet (as Anderson) what attracted him to her first, Charvet (as Anderson) answered, "Maybe my simplicity." The host asked whether they were still in touch, and Charvet (as Anderson) smiled, "Oh, yes, we're very good friends."

In the early 1990s, as her career on "Baywatch" began to really take off, Pamela Anderson dated Bret Michaels, the lead singer of Poison. Michaels has experienced health issues over the years, but before then, he and Anderson were living the rock star lifestyle ... and he blamed himself for the whole mess that followed with Tommy Lee. "I set her on this path towards rock destruction! I am the man who can claim that," he told PR.com (via Blabbermouth). "We used to laugh and she'd go, 'Gosh, I used to go out with models and actors, and then I met you and it's been a path of destruction ever since.'"

Michaels also defended Anderson's honor from an interviewer who seemed ready to insult her intelligence. "Obviously she has blond hair and big boobs," he said, "and she was very intelligent. Don't let her fool you. She knows what's going on."

The relationship didn't last, in part because Anderson's mom wasn't a fan of her shift toward rock stars. Even though Michaels got John Stamos to invite Anderson's mother onstage to sing with The Beach Boys, she wasn't impressed. "The next day, Pamela goes, 'My mom really doesn't like you very much,'" he told Blender. "I'm thinking, 'What the f***? The mom really didn't like the rocker thing.'"

World-famous surfer Kelly Slater appeared on "Baywatch" as Jimmy Slade, a lifeguard with a particular talent for riding the waves. He came to resent having appeared on the show, later telling Vice, "It was just commercializing and, you know, sort of bastardizing what our culture was for a character. That wasn't really a fun time for me." At the time, however, he also started dating his co-star Pamela Anderson. "Pam and Kelly Slater had relations," creator Michael Berk said (viaDaily Star), "so it was David [Charvet] and Kelly fighting over Pam." The cast of "Baywatch" experienced tragedy after tragedy, so it makes sense that the atmosphere on set was occasionally as tense as the actors' off-screen lives.

Speaking with Metro several decades later, Slater said that he took a lot of flak from other surfers for his time on the show. He doesn't regret his relationship with Anderson, however. "I learned a lot," he said. "I don't have any ill feelings toward her. I wish her well." Thinking back on their relationship, he added, "Hey, we had an amazing time together."

It's impressive that he still thinks about Anderson that way, because she actually left him to date Tommy Lee. In her documentary "Pamela, A Love Story" (via Metro), she revealed, "I was dating Kelly Slater at the time and I was supposed to go see him in Florida and meet his family. My first phone call was him, to tell him I was married. He's like, 'What?!' That was horrible."

In 1995, Pamela Anderson began dating Tommy Lee, the frontman of heavy metal band Mötley Crüe. He was a rock star, she was a television darling, and their relationship became a media frenzy that led to stalking by the paparazzi, a stolen sex tape, and accusations of abuse. In the early days, however, the roller coaster was a blast. In her memoir "Love, Pamela," the star of "The Last Showgirl" wrote, "My relationship with Tommy may have been the only time I was ever truly in love. ... We had fun ... and our rule was no rules."

In "The Dirt," an autobiography written by Mötley Crüe (via Rolling Stone), Lee recalled the early days of their relationship. "I couldn't believe that it was possible to feel so happy. For a so-called bad boy, I was turning into a pansy. It felt like our hearts had been hot-glued together," he said. "When she was working, I'd just sit in my hotel room like a dead man and wait for her to call so I could come back to life."

They divorced after a scary incident in which Anderson alleged that Lee became physically violent, leading to police involvement and a six-month stay in prison for the rocker. "I was crushed. I still couldn't believe that the person I loved the most was capable of what had happened that night," she wrote. "We were both devastated, but I had to protect my babies." Thankfully, the kids were okay. Anderson's sons grew up to be gorgeous, and she's managed to develop a decent relationship with her most infamous ex. 

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.

Pamela Anderson left "Baywatch" after the show's seventh season, and it went off the air entirely in 2001. Throughout the decade that followed, Anderson searched for her place in the culture, becoming everything from a "Scary Movie" punchline to the object of Borat's affections in "Borat." From 2001 to 2003 and again in 2006, Anderson dated "Bawitdaba" singer Kid Rock, eventually marrying him for mere months in the middle of the decade.

In an interview with The Orlando Sentinel, Kid Rock insisted that he and Anderson had a mature relationship. "We're coming at it from the same perspective — we both love our kids very much and we want to be parents," he said. "I didn't think there were any girls left out there — especially with what I do — who want to be moms anymore, who want to do the sewing and cooking and have me go out and fix the car and throw the kids around the yard." Still, he acknowledged that they liked to go a little wild together when their children weren't around.

They married on a yacht in 2006 and went their separate ways a short time later. Anderson eventually revealed that it was "Borat" that ruined things. In her memoir "Love, Pamela" (via Rolling Stone), Anderson wrote, "I didn't tell Bob I was in the movie, because I wanted to surprise him. I forgot about the part in the film that referenced the 'sex tape.' Bob stormed out, calling me a wh*** and worse." Anderson wasn't going to stand for that, and the marriage was over.

Though tabloids were once fascinated by the open question of whether Stephen Dorff and Reese Witherspoon ever dated, it seems that he did, indeed, have a relationship with Pamela Anderson. In a piece for The Guardian, the "Somewhere" star reflected on the whirlwind romance, which made both actors a topic of intense media speculation for a while.

"I'm quite lucky in that, apart from a couple of women I've dated, where it became more of a circus, I've kept my private life private," he reflected. Dorff said he struggled with the intensity of the public interest in his love life, noting that it was something that unfortunately couldn't be avoided in a relationship with someone as famous as Anderson. "I'm amazed that, as a young actor, I didn't end up crashing and burning. I was running all over, being outspoken. But now I'm calmer and more positive."

He later told the same outlet that his relationship with the "Baywatch" star made him reconsider whether he wanted any of his romances to be with other public figures. "[W]hen I was younger, when I was hanging out with Pamela Anderson, I was an idiot if I thought I wasn't gonna get any attention," he reflected. "If you date someone who's basically a media target, then you're asking for it. But if I'm dating someone who's not, I don't wanna bring them into the media."

Like other Hollywood icons such as Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Collins, and Billy Bob Thornton, Pamela Anderson has been married numerous times. One such marriage was to professional poker player Rick Salomon, and it actually became two marriages; they got hitched in both 2007 and 2014, before going their separate ways for good.

During their first marriage, Anderson reportedly left Salomon because someone found a crack pipe in their Christmas tree, and Salomon said it wasn't his. He even doubled down in an interview with The New York Post upon release of "Pamela, A Love Story," insisting, "I smoked crack for 25 f***ing years, but the crack pipe in the Christmas tree was 1,000% not mine. [That] crack pipe has nothing to do with me, but I am a crackhead."

In 2015, when they went their separate ways a second time, Anderson received restraining orders against her ex. While he had sued her for failing to help promote a casino in Las Vegas that he'd invested in, she alleged that he'd been both verbally and physically abusive. When the second divorce was finalized, they released a joint statement to People that read, "Public divorces can be harsh and cruel — we apologize to our families and friends for any hurt and embarrassment we have caused."

The COVID-19 pandemic was a difficult time for just about everybody in the world, and Pamela Anderson was no exception. Just before it hit, word was that she had married movie mogul Jon Peters; the relationship fell apart less than two weeks later, and Anderson later said they hadn't actually legally married at all.

They met when she was still a teenager, and Peters was around for the whole story, given a front-row seat to the stunning transformation of Pamela Anderson. He even told The Hollywood Reporter that he made an effort to dissuade her from the modeling move that set her on a path to superstardom. "I knew she would be a big star. We ended up living together," he recalled. "Of course, [Hugh] Hefner loved her and saw her beauty. Pamela was a girl who with no makeup was gorgeous. She was very smart and very talented." Though he advised against posing for Playboy, she went on to become one of the most popular models in the magazine's history.

Speaking with Variety after their attempted relationship came crashing down, Peters said he had no hard feelings about the short-lived romance. "I will always love Pamela, always in my heart. As a matter of fact, I left her $10 million in my will," he confessed. "And she doesn't even know that. Nobody knows that. I'm just saying it for the first time with you. I probably shouldn't be saying it."

In 2025, amid a critically acclaimed comeback to movie stardom, Pamela Anderson acted in a reboot of "The Naked Gun." She starred alongside Liam Neeson, and while on the promotional tour for the film, there were plenty of signs that Anderson and Neeson were destined for lasting love.

While appearing on Andy Cohen's SiriusXM show (via Elle), for example, Neeson said that he was attracted to Anderson the moment they met on set. "She had this wonderful sense of silliness and just humanity about her," he said. "I don't want to blow her head up, but it was like I just felt an ease with her, you know, and we discovered a silliness with each other, which was terrific."

Though there were rumors that the romance was just a publicity stunt for the film, Anderson insisted that their feelings were real, and that they'd spent a lovely time together after shooting the movie. Sources told RadarOnline, however, that Neeson just wasn't able to make it work because he's still devastated by the tragic loss of his wife Natasha Richardson. "Liam thought Pamela was wonderful company, fun and warm, but Liam carries a weight that's just part of him now," the source said. "He adores her, but he can't escape the pain of his past."