What makes a good celebrity memoir?

Feat. Pamela Anderson. Also: a great podcast on diet culture and my new favourite kids book

Last week could have been titled, My Week With Pamela. I read this great interview, then this great interview, then I watched her vg Netflix doc, Pamela, A Love Story and then I read her extremely readable memoir, Love, Pamela. And still I was not full! So what do Love, Pamela and Pamela, A Love Story tell us about female celebrity. And what they can add to the cultural canon of reappraisal?

The top notes: humble, often traumatic, upbringing in Canada, life as a Baywatch bombshell, being superfuckingfamous in the 90s, the fall-out from her stolen sex tape with Tommy Lee, her many marriages, being a free spirit, animal activism, her love of literature and art, and being a mum. The doc is funny and tender and stuffed full of excellent archive, while the book is written in this very endearing, old-timey sort of way, for eg like when her parents met, aged 17 and 19:

“She was sitting on the lowest branch, swinging her pretty legs in bobby socks, so the story goes, when Dad and his friend walked by. Dad zeroed in on her and gave his best buddy a quarter to get lost. Hey, angel, he said, leaning his arm against the trunk, slicked-back-hair and ocean eyes. She was smitten.”

Since consuming both, I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes Pamela Anderson such a great interviewee and documentary subject, and I think is her very un 2023 attitude to steering ‘The Narrative’. It even says as much, on the book jacket: “the Pamela Anderson we think we know was created through happenstance, rather than careful cultivation”. Is that even possible for a celebrity, now? Pamela famously no-showed her first twelve Baywatch auditions because she wasn’t sure she wanted that life. She dyed - and still dyes - her hair with a $5 kit from the supermarket and wore the same denim shorts everywhere. Can you imagine Bella Hadid (because Pamela was always more of a cultural icon, than an actor) being this artless? Is it even possible, now, to be artless? (Short answer: no.)

Memoirs and documentaries made by the subject are inevitably vanity projects of sorts, but while there is an artifice to Pamela’s image, there’s an undeniable authenticity to her personhood. I know, I know, I wince writing that - authenticity is a much-maligned modern obsession, and one I spent an entire chapter deconstructing in my essay collection - but she has it. She understands, fully, how misunderstood she is - and yet neither the documentary, or the book, seek to rail particularly against this misunderstanding, as much as to represent the person she is and always has been: once a child on Vancouver Island who pulled the tail off a beach rat and watched her alcoholic father drown a basket of kittens; now, a fifty-five-year-old woman living back on Vancouver Island, with her sober father and mother.

That person - who reads Proust and Anaïs Nin to relax and spends most of her time buying and discussing modern art with big art collectors - will be surprising to many, because her looks have seen her dismissed as a bimbo. “I am who I am, which is a combination of all I know, and I’ve always believe that striving to be a sensual person, or being sexy, should not conflict with intelligence” she says when Julian Assange’s mum (yes) suggests she stops wearing make-up and posting sexy pictures, so that she be seen for the intelligent woman she clearly is: one who is involved in activism and charity work and lobbies on behalf of people like Assange. These things are reported as the facts of her life, the things that matter to her, rather than as a flex. It is not positioning or posture - it’s just that she’s writing about her life and, well, this is her life. You can almost read the shrug.

Pamela has had a hard life. There’s alcoholism, poverty, domestic and sexual abuse in her childhood. She was beaten by her husband while holding their newborn baby, frequently stolen from (“I just always think, they must need it more than me”), attempted suicide, was stalked and suffered the ignominy of a global sex tape, the first of ‘the sex tape trend’ (before Kim’s and Paris’s came along), which essentially ended her career as an actress.

But she doesn’t ask anyone to feel sorry for her. You do, inevitably, because what a spate of shitty things to happen to a person. But you also feel - and forgive what my friend calls ‘heartspeak’ here - a sort of inner sunshine radiating out of her, and her book. I can’t help but compare them with Prince Harry’s Netflix doc and memoir - and I’m not the only one. Look at the picnic you are served up when you select Pamela’s autobiography on Amazon. (Sidenote: this is made more mind-bending by the fact that Pamela (twice) married the man who appears with Paris in another stolen sex tape).

It would be daft to compare Pamela Anderson and Prince Harry’s life stories, but as they both exist in the celebrity memoir canon, came out one after the other and are now neighbours on Amazon, it is an interesting project to compare the experience of consuming them. I felt uneasy and sad and frustrated reading Harry’s, with its lack of self-awareness (despite the editorial distance of a ghost-writer) and immersed and relaxed reading Pamela’s. That’s not because I don’t think Harry has suffered - he has - but because he is furious with everyone and seething with injustice, whilst Love, Pamela is conspicuously devoid of self-pity. Perhaps it’s the benefit of hindsight. Pamela’s ‘big public moment’ was a stolen sex tape, over 25 years ago. Harry has only just left - is arguably still in - the eye of the global storm.

Harry’s desperation to control public opinion became the overriding sentiment in both his Netflix doc and Spare and debatably caused the recent dip in his and Meghan’s opinion polls both here and in the States. It’s this lack of hubris and self-pity which makes Pamela’s book and documentary successful, and her, such an irresistible interview subject. Baywatch was the biggest show in the world in the 1990s, streamed in 150 countries, with most territories including a contractual ‘Pamela clause’, meaning that they would only buy in the episodes that she was in. (Which meant soon CJ was in almost all of them.) She was, when she met Tommy Lee, one of the biggest stars in the world and yet the only comment she makes on her super-attenuated, unfiltered beauty is that she had always been small, and that her mother always told her that beauty does not come naturally.

I read somewhere that her decision to write the book (she does not use a ghost-writer) and to make the documentary, came from her sons’ desire to secure her a financial security that has thus far eluded her. She has never amassed a great fortune (likely because she has spent so much of it on charity and, er, Julian Assange) and they want to see her set-up for life. The moments with her sons are some of the most tender in the doc. “I think he is the only man I have ever really loved” she tells Brandon of his father, Tommy, who served 6 months in prison for assaulting her. She burst into tears and he guides her gently outside. Later, when she scores the part of Roxie in Broadway’s Chicago, he rips her mercilessly. She gets her own back by calling him at 7am.

There are the ubiquitous, mad, been-famous-for-a-long-time moments, like in the doc when she sifts through an air hangar of multi-coloured knee-high lace-up boots with her assistant, clad in only a nightie and Ugg boots, or in the book when she talks about her Vegas antics with David LaChapelle, or her move to St Tropez or her approach to marriage (five thus far). At times, I was vividly reminded of Britney Spears. The long tangled hair extensions, the noughties-style approach to fashion, the lack of guile. Both women deal with revolting probes about their breasts and sex life with a similar gentle elegance, without the aid of 10 publicists. The over-bearing publicist is, I think, the biggest change of the last two decades in entertainment - and annoying as they are for journalists (resulting in most celeb interviews now being puff pieces) you can see their value, when you re-watch interviews like this.

Here’s Pamela telling her friend Jay Leno that the sex tape scandal wasn’t just a punch-line.

“It’s not funny” she tells him, in a chipper tone, “this is devastating to us”.

“It is?” Leno replies, quizzically.

“It is, yeah - it’s terrible” she replies.

Despite the fact that the tape was stolen by a building contractor from a locked safe belonging to Pamela and Tommy Lee, they lost their legal case against him, because, the judge determined, Pamela had posed nude and thus violated her own privacy before anyone else did. (I cba to explain why posing nude is not the same as a private sex tape being stolen, made public against your own will and sold for someone else’s commercial gain.) It’s a variation on: you were asking for it, sweedie.

We are living in a time of cultural re-appraisal, about how pop culture treated women in the 90s and noughties. Which is what makes it all the more extraordinary that Hulu decided to make a series about Pamela and Tommy’s sex tape being leaked, starring Lily James and Sebastian Stan, and not get in touch with Pamela herself. “I blocked that stolen tape out of my life, to survive” she says of this fresh violation, in the documentary. “And now that it’s all coming up again? I feel sick”. (The trailer makes this part look like a much larger part of the doc than it is, btw.)

We talk a lot about “who gets to tell stories now” - but everyone involved in the Hulu show apparently forgot this very noisy, prescient conversation. Why did they not make Pamela an executive producer? Why did they not have her co-write the script, should she want to? (She’s a perfectly decent and sometimes lovely, writer.) Why did they not, at the very least, offer her a big fat consultancy fee? One of the most poignant parts of the documentary is when she receives a message from Tommy, who she is still close to, saying (I’m paraphrasing here): don’t let it hurt you as bad as it did last time.

The irony of us doing a collective, sage nod about how we “don’t treat women like that anymore” - while making a drama about someone’s most intimate moments, without her permission, thus making everyone else lots of money. Sound familiar? It makes me want to bash my head against a brick wall, quite frankly.

It isn’t a perfect book. The poetry (of which there is a lot) is heavy-handed and there are some glaring omissions - she doesn’t write about her alleged lover, Putin (understandable), or her fifth husband (though that could be a timeline thing, as they only split last year) and she describes Hugh Hefner as the only “perfect gentleman” she has ever known, which might get some backs up - but it is a truthful book, not an indulgent one, and it more than succeeds at what it sets out to do. I’m not really a consumer of celebrity memoirs (despite being fascinated by them, I’ve still not read Miriam Margoyles, or Lady Anne Glenconner’s) but I do - fully and absolutely - recommend this one. At the very least, give the documentary a watch. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Check out: 35 Celebrity Memoirs That Are Actually Worth Reading

---

My favourite kids book right now

Before we get into the Bits, I wanted to recommend Everything Under The Sun: A Curious Question for Every Day of the Year, by Molly Oldfield. My almost-five-year-old is just about old enough to appreciate it and I’m absolutely delighting in it (and quite frankly learning a lot). If you’re also being asked daily: how babies are made, what the earth is made of, and if we wear shoes in heaven (ontological questions being my least favourite) then this one is for you <3

---

BITS

TV, movies, podcasts, journalism, baby animals & more

Maintenance Phase One of my new favourite podcasts, hosted by Audrey Gordon and Michael Hobbes (former co-host of the also vg You’re Wrong About) which debunks commercial wellness and diet culture. I loved the episode on Goop and the one on fat camps - which delved into why the focus on short-term obesity and the use of shame as a diet tool, is a misfire. Did you know that there are 60 different types of obesity? Me neither. It’s funny, pacey and rigorously researched. Next on my list: the episode on why French women don’t get fat.

New York magazine’s new etiquette rules I have been tickled by the internet’s absolute tizzy over New York magazine’s piece on “how to text, tip, ghost, host and generally exist in polite society today”. “Deranged” said The Independent of the magazine’s modern etiquette guide, “truly baffling” concluded The Daily Mail. It is an admittedly hilarious set of rules. Amongst other things, it’s apparently mandatory to own lube, and verboten to ask someone what their job is. Read with a pinch of salt.

Why are baby animals such catnip for the soul? I got sent a picture of a baby bison and felt my heart perform origami. So here I am, paying it forward.

The Kureishi Chronicles The British author and playwright Hanif Kureishi most famous for The Buddha of Suburbia and My Beautiful Launderette suffered a fall in December which left him tetraplegic. His response? To start a Substack updated daily by his son, to whom he dictates from his hospital bed. Like his books, its moving, smart and saucy and devoid of self-pity. I particularly loved the post on his first pedicure - which he received whilst eating caviar with a plastic spoon.

Fawlty Towers 2.0 is coming And my heart doth sink. Not only do I see no need to revive it (why must everything be reduxed!), but Connie Booth (his wife) and Andrew Sachs (Manuel!) won’t be in it. The near half-century-old sitcom is so totally of its time, and 83-year-old Cleese now spends much of his time busily railing against cancel culture that I can’t help but wince in anticipation. (This piece by Stu Heritage made me laugh). Fawlty Towers’ cult-ness was informed by its brevity: just 12 episodes, eked out from 1975 to 1979. Dragging it back out of retirement is like Withnail and I churning out a sequel, or Fleabag hauling sorry ass back on screen. It’s so much chicer to leave it sparkling in aspic. I’m intrigued what other Fawlty fans think - do share your thoughts in the Comments.

The world’s 12 deadliest gangs After reading a piece in the current issue of GQ on the Calabrian mafia, the ‘Ndrangheta, I started noodling round the internet for more info. I stumbled across this terrifying/ riveting 2017 primer by Hayley Kaplan (also in GQ) on the most profitable and deadly gangs across the globe. And holy smokes, are they profitable. The ‘Ndrangheta turned over 44 billion in 2014. My next stop: Gomorrah.

The ugly side of kindness A thought-provoking piece by Elle Hunt for The Guardian on ‘kindness influencers’ and the people harmed by the current trend for feelgood videos. Does altruism exist if it’s being filmed? (This reminds me of Phoebe in Friends trying to find a good deed that doesn’t also make her feel good.)

Maternal on ITV Player If you liked The Split, you will like this very gobbleable ITV drama about three women returning to the NHS after maternity leave (and a pandemic). One description of young motherhood that struck a chord with me: “I feel like all the pieces of who I was before I had children have been thrown up in the air and some of them still haven’t landed”. Maybe they never will.

Josh Baker’s interview with Shamima Begum I’m yet to listen to his BBC podcast I’m Not a Monster (now on its 2nd series), but I was fascinated by journalist Josh Baker’s interview with ‘jihadi bride’ Shamima Begum in The Times magazine at the weekend. Baker has spent years researching Begum’s story and most horrifying are his interviews with Shamima’s estranged husband and the father of her three babies, the Dutch ISIS fighter Yago Riedijk, who married his wife when she was just 15-years-old, having met her for only 10 minutes. Wherever you stand on the Bethnal Green trio, this provides much-needed nuance.

Triangle of Sadness I debated whether or not to recommend this movie, as it includes an unbelievably revolting sequence of seasickness. If you have emetophobia, DO NOT WATCH THIS. The winner of this year’s Palme d’Or, it’s an eat-the-rich, White Lotus-style black comedy set on a luxury yacht. (There’s also a meta layer of sadness, that I couldn’t get out of my head while watching - one of the leads, the South African actress Charlbi Dean, tragically died in the summer after a short, shock illness.) I would say the first third is great, the second third is rank, and the third third is heavy-handed. I’m really interested to know what other people thought of it - if you’ve watched it, lmk your thoughts in the Comments below!