Pamela Anderson is one of the most recognisable faces in Hollywood.
Ever since she was spotted on the huge jumbotron screen at a baseball game aged 21, her physical traits have been the overriding subject the world has focused on.
Now 57, the actress and modelis claiming back her life, her story and forging a new path in her career.
“I feel so free,” she tells Sky News during a conversation in a London hotel about her latest film The Last Showgirl.
“I write a lot of emotional journals and there’s a lot that you can get out. You can go to therapy, or you can talk to your best friend, but there’s nothing like an art project to express yourself and heal parts of yourself.”
Image: Pamela Anderson in The Last Showgirl. Pic: Picturehouse Entertainment
The Last Showgirl follows a seasoned entertainer who has to plan for her future when her Las Vegas show abruptly ends after a 30-year run.
The role almost slipped from her fingers when her old agent passed on the script.
“I have a new agent now,” she says with a smile.
Image: Pic: Picturehouse Entertainment
It was her son Brandon who served as a catalyst in her career resurgence after stumbling upon the screenplay and showing it to his mother.
“My sons are so protective of me and their goal is just to say: ‘Mom, we just want you to be able to know that you focused on us as kids and we want you to have the opportunity to shine and to reach your potential as an actress’.”
She adds: “I do have a lot to give, so now I just feel so free. I couldn’t have done anything like this when I had kids because my focus was with them. Now that they’re grown and they’re doing well and they’re thriving, that gives me the opportunity to be able to play in this universe.”
The Canadian-American has been the victim of many harsh headlines over the years with her most challenging moments played out in front of the world.
One of the toughest moments, when her sex tape with her ex-husband Tommy Lee was leaked, ended up being made into its own TV series starring Oscar nominee Sebastian Stan and English actress Lily James.
Anderson had no input in the show and repeatedly called for it to be scrapped.
Image: Anderson as CJ Parker in Baywatch. Pic: Fremantle Media/Shutterstock
Anderson says that despite the adversity and misogyny she has faced being in the public eye, she feels ready to take on the spotlight again. This time on her terms.
“It was hard for me decades ago, and now I can look at it as a learning experience. And it was a different time. I think that looking at it through my kids’ eyes was interesting.
“Talking to my adult children about having a mom who was, you know, objectified in some way and how that felt [for them] and how that shaped them and their experience growing up, being teased in school.”
Her sons, Brandon and Dylan, are now both in their late 20s.
Image: A make-up free Anderson dazzles on the BAFTA red carpet
Drawing similarities to her character Shelly in The Last Showgirl, Anderson says the film serves as a reflection of the sacrifices, external expectations and realities connected to being a woman and a mother.
“We’re doing the best we can with the tools that we have and what we’ve seen growing up. And there’s no perfect way to be a parent, there really isn’t – and especially in this industry.
“When I did Playboy, when I was in Baywatch, I wasn’t thinking about how it was affecting my kids. I was thinking about just keeping the lights on and living this exciting life and getting through it myself.
“But, you know, it affects everybody around you – your parents, your friends, your kids – and so to kind of look at it from that way [in The Last Showgirl] and to have empathy for the character of Shelly dealing with that… I had some experience to draw from.”
Image: The Last Showgirl. Pic: Roadside Attractions
The film also stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Brenda Song and Kiernan Shipka as her close friends and co-workers in a fading corner of the Las Vegas strip.
Anderson adds of the film: “I think this can resonate with any working mom. We all carry this guilt and shame and wish we would have done this or that. And we have to be happy, too.”
The Last Showgirl is out in UK cinemas from Friday 28 February.
US singer Chris Brown has been charged with grievous bodily harm with intent in connection with a 2023 incident in London.
He remains in custody and is due to appear at Manchester Magistrates’ Court at 10am this morning, police said.
The charge relates to an assault which reportedly took place at a venue in Hanover Square in Mayfair on Sunday 19 February 2023.
The 36-year-old was arrested at a hotel in Manchester in the early hours of Thursday by detectives from the Metropolitan Police.
The Sun has reported that the R&B singer flew into Manchester Airport on a private jet on Wednesday afternoon.
Adele Kelly, the deputy chief crown prosecutor for CPS London North, said: “We have authorised the Metropolitan Police to charge Chris Brown with one count of grievous bodily harm, contrary to section 18 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861.
“The alleged incident occurred in London on 19 February 2023.
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“He will have his first court appearance on Friday 16 May at Manchester Magistrates’ Court.
“The Crown Prosecution Service reminds all concerned that criminal proceedings against this defendant are active and that he has the right to a fair trial.
“It is extremely important that there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings.”
The Go Crazy singer is set to tour the UK in June and July, with dates at Co-Op Live in Manchester and Principality Stadium in Cardiff.
His representatives have been contacted for comment.
Sexually explicit messages between RnB singer Cassie and her former boyfriend Sean “Diddy” Combs have been read in court, with some showing her expressing apparent enthusiasm about the “freak off” sex sessions with escorts she alleges she was forced into.
The 38-year-old, whose full name is Casandra Ventura, faced a full day of cross-examination from the hip-hop mogul’s defence lawyers, who are attempting to convince the jury she consented to a “swingers lifestyle”.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution, in relation to Ms Ventura and other women. His lawyers have conceded he could be violent, but say nothing he did amounted to crimes of this nature.
Ms Ventura alleges she was physically abused and degraded for years by the powerful hip-hop star and music executive, accusing him of violence, coercion, blackmail and rape.
Prosecutors say he exploited and used his network of employees to facilitate illegal activities, which is a key part of the racketeering charge.
Image: Messages sent by Cassie to Diddy were read in court. Pic: Reuters/ Jane Rosenberg
But during the fourth day of the trial in Manhattan, New York, defence lawyers pushed back, focusing on texts and emails that were both romantic and sexually explicit.
“I’m always ready to freak off,” the court heard Ms Ventura wrote in one message in August 2009. In another she told him, about a freak off: “Can’t wait.” And in another, jurors were told, she described a video of one sex session with an escort as “dope”.
The pair were together, on and off, for about 11 years from 2007 to 2018.
Combs, whose mother Janice has been in court all week to support him, along with some of his children, appeared relaxed as the messages were read aloud for jurors.
Messages from 4 March 2016 – the day before an incident at the InterContinental Hotel in Century City, Los Angeles, in which Combs was filmed on CCTV seeming to attack Ms Ventura in a hallway, as he was wearing just a towel and socks – were also read in court.
Footage from this incident, which was first made public in May 2024, has been a key piece of evidence during the trial. Ms Ventura has told the court it happened as she tried to leave a freak off session after being hit by Combs.
Image: Janice Combs was in court to support her son once again. Pic: Reuters/ David ‘Dee’ Delgado
Freak off ‘felt dirty, grimy’
During cross-examination, the court heard Ms Ventura sent a sexually explicit message the day before this.
She also sent him a message saying, “Baby I want to FO so bad but I dont want to f*** myself up”.
Ms Ventura has told the court this was damage limitation and that she wanted to keep him happy, as she had a film premiere coming up a few days later.
Jurors also heard details of an email she sent in 2009, in which she expressed conflicting feelings about taking part in these sex sessions with escorts.
In the email, she told Combs she needed to trust him “beyond it just being sexual” – that in order to be more open sexually, “I need to feel safe, like home”.
She told him “the last time was a mistake but since has made me feel a little dirty, and grimy as opposed to sexual and spontaneous”.
This was the reason she was going “back and forth in my mind with wanting and not wanting to do it”, she wrote. At first, when they were “so in love… there were no questions asked, it felt right”.
She told him: “I get nervous that I’m just becoming the girlfriend that you get your fantasies off with.”
Image: Brian Steel is one of the defence laywers on Combs’s team. Pic: Reuters/ David ‘Dee’ Delgado
Ms Ventura has told the court that she fell in love with Combs very quickly when they got together, when she was 21 and he was 37. She has said she wanted to please him, but became fearful of him.
At one point during cross-examination, she raised that she felt jurors were not hearing the full context of some of the messages being highlighted, saying: “There’s a lot we skipped over.”
Combs’s lawyers are painting his sexual preferences as part of a “swingers” lifestyle that has been mentioned previously at trial, saying people might not agree with it but it does not make him guilty of sex trafficking.
Questioned on this, Ms Ventura said they were “very different”.
She was also asked about drug use, her own and Combs’s, and at one point told the court she believed he was addicted to opiates when they were together.
She also said he was taken to hospital after overdosing on opiates at the Playboy Mansion in 2012 – something which was reported on by outlets including TMZ at the time, when it was said he had suffered a migraine.
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Cassie breaks down in tears during previous day’s evidence
Judge frustrated with Diddy’s lawyers
Away from the questioning, a notable moment in court came when Judge Arun Subramanian became frustrated with Diddy’s lawyers over how long they will spend cross-examining Ms Ventura.
He told them they should get a day and a half – the same time the prosecution had. “In what universe did you not understand this is what was going to happen?” he told them.
The judge is keen to keep the trial on time and particularly Ms Ventura’s evidence, as she is eight months pregnant with her third child with husband Alex Fine, who has been supporting her in court.
The criminal case against Combs comes after Ms Ventura sued him in 2023, accusing him of years of physical and sexual abuse. The suit was settled in 24 hours, for a figure that was undisclosed at the time.
Ms Ventura has confirmed during the trial that this was $20m (about £15m).
Combs, 55, has been jailed since September, and faces at least 15 years or possibly life in prison if convicted.
Singer Chris Brown has been arrested over an alleged bottle attack at a London nightclub two years ago.
The US R&B star was arrested at a hotel in Manchester in the early hours of Thursday by Metropolitan Police detectives.
The 36-year-old is being held on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm at a nightclub in Mayfair, central London, in February 2023.
He flew into Manchester Airport on a private jet on Wednesday afternoon, according to The Sun.
Image: File pic: Invision/AP
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said: “A 36-year-old man was arrested at a hotel in Manchester shortly after 02:00hrs on Thursday, 15 May on suspicion of grievous bodily harm.
“He has been taken into custody where he remains.
“The arrest relates to an incident at a venue in Hanover Square on 19 February 2023.
“The investigation is being led by detectives from the Central West Area Basic Command Unit.”