Pam & Tommy: The Real Story Behind The Disney+ Series Here Everything We Know
The 'Baywatch' actress and the Mötley Crüe musician were immersed in one of the most notorious scandals of the 90s: the distribution without their permission of a private sex tape that turned their lives upside down.
Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee became in a matter of days one of the most famous couples of the 90s, and also one of the most controversial. The blame lies with a sex video that is at the center of ‘Pam & Tommy‘, the new Disney + miniseries where the real story of the couple is told since they met and until their privacy was exposed to the world.
The series is based on an article published in Rolling Stone magazine in 2014, in which the journalist Amanda Chicago Lewis recovered the story twenty years later to clarify things: the couple’s sex tape was stolen in the most incredible and unfortunate way possible, and the consequences it brought showed the double standards of the media and the public in the 1990s. That is precisely what the series starring Lily James and Sebastian Stan is based on, and which premiered its first three episodes on February 2. Critics already point out that it may be one of the essential series of 2022 especially for the interpretation of James (prosthesis and makeup through) as the actress of ‘Baywatch’.
For those who need to refresh their memory, or those who simply know absolutely nothing about this true story, we review what happened in those 90s with Pamela Anderson, Tommy Lee, a former porn actor turned electrician and a sex tape that would put all their lives upside down.
How Pamela Anderson And Tommy Lee Met
It can be said that the thing between actress Pamela Anderson and musician Tommy Lee was love at first sight. The two first met at a nightclub in Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve 1994, and the sparks apparently flew. Anderson was a star thanks to his role as CJ Parker in ‘Baywatch’ and Lee was part of the glam metal band Mötley Crüe. Just a few days after that meeting, Lee followed Anderson to Cancun (Mexico), where the actress had some work meetings, and both ended up succumbing to passion.
“Tommy and I started out having a really intense, fun, crazy relationship because we were two kids. We were madly in love. It wasn’t because of drugs or alcohol or anything. We were both really passionate,” Anderson said in a 1998 interview. They were married on the beach in Cancun and returned to the United States as husband and wife. As expected, the media enjoyed this express wedding between celebrities and from that moment both would be in the spotlight. Anderson moved into Lee’s Malibu mansion, and they began their life together, until a small videotape complicated everything.
How Pam and Tommy’s Sex Tape Was Stolen
The famous sex tape of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee contained a sexual encounter of the couple during their vacation on a yacht. “We had taken a five-day trip to a house on Lake Mead for a vacation, “Lee said in an interview with Rolling Stone. “As usual, I brought my video camera. We weren’t trying to make a porn movie, we just wanted to document our vacation. We watched it once when we got home, then put it in our safe, a 500-pound monstrosity, hidden under a rug in the control room of my garage studio”. This is precisely how we see it in the Disney+ series. But how is it possible that someone found her in those circumstances?
Anderson and Lee hired a team of builders to fix up their Malibu home for three months in early 1995, and among them was an electrician and former porn actor named Rand Gauthier. Apparently, the musician was very chaotic and unreasonable with his demands, constantly changing the remodeling plan of the place and finally firing them without paying them what he owed them with the excuse that they were doing a bad job. This did not sit well with Gauthier, who wanted to recover the $20,000 owed to his team by robbing the safe in the house. Yeah, the safe that the sex tape was in.After months of planning his robbery, the electrician got it in early November 1995 and, upon discovering the tape, he knew he had something much juicier than money in his hands .
With the help of porn producer Milton Ingley, he distributed the tape on the internet after receiving multiple refusals from traditional distributors. At that time, as we can imagine, the internet was not what it is today. It was still in its early years, slowly gaining popularity, but it was advanced enough that some home users could download the video and start distributing it to individuals. Within weeks, Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s sex tape was everywhere. And they found out themselves when they saw it on the news.
What Consequences Did The Robbery Have For The Couple?
Once the video had entered the network, there was no possible solution. The tape was everywhere, the yellow media echoed its content and even Penthouse magazine published stills from it in June 1996. The consequences of this terrible invasion of her privacy had a double standard, as the miniseries ‘Pam & Tommy‘ shows: Pamela Anderson was criticized very harshly for allowing the very existence of the tape, she was criticized for her appearance and the way she dressed and of course her career as an actress was affected by the extreme objectification to which she was subjected. “It was great sitting through depositions, where a bunch of old men with scabby white shit on the corners of their mouths were holding up nude photos of me in Playboy and asking me why I cared that the tape was out there,” Anderson said in the autobiography of Lee from 2004, titled ‘Tommyland’ (via Esquire), “I couldn’t deal with it. It got to a point where I couldn’t go to another deposition with these sweaty old men asking me about my sex life.
Nothing to do with the reaction against Tommy Lee, for whom this sex video was part of his personality as a rebellious rocker and he was even complimented on the size of his penis (which, in the Disney+ series, is one more character with a voice) included). There were rumors at the time that it was the couple who had facilitated the publication of the tape, but time has shown that this was not the case. Both fought tirelessly with their lawyers to try to contain the controversy and recover the tape, but it was impossible. The case was even used to start a whole debate about freedom of the press. In the end, the only thing they got was financial compensation for the copyright since they had recorded it themselves.
And your marriage? Another victim of this scandal. Pam and Tommy had two children together, but the couple’s relationship deteriorated. Their constant arguments ended in a fight for which Tommy was put on trial in 1998 for assault. He served six months in prison and received a three-year suspended prison sentence, on the condition that he pay $6,200 to a domestic violence shelter. The couple divorced soon after, but later made several attempts to restart their relationship. In 2008, Pam and the kids moved into Tommy’s house once again, but parted ways for good in 2010.
