Pamela Anderson Is Tired of Being Treated Like a ‘Sex Clown’

Howard Stern has fashioned a career out of objectifying celebrities—women, to be specific. He once provoked Sarah Michelle Gellar about her pubic hair, tried to force Anna Nicole Smith to weigh herself on air, and asked Mariah Carey if she wore underwear. Somehow though, he’s still working and booking high-profile and oft-harassed guests like Pamela Anderson, a woman he’s spent years hitting on despite the fact that she couldn’t be any less interested.

This week, the actress, model, and author appeared on Stern’s Sirius XM show to discuss her forthcoming projects—a Netflix documentary, Pamela, a love story, and memoir, Love, Pamela—and naturally, he quickly ventured into profoundly personal territory. For example: where she stands with her ex-husband and the father of her two sons, Tommy Lee (“I mean, he’s married and happy and she’s good to him”); her relationship with one of her first bosses, Hugh Hefner (“he wrote me letters all the time”); and her choice to include in her memoir that she was sexually assaulted at the age of 12 (“I didn’t want it to be just this big old tell-all, you know? This miserable book. It’s hopeful. It’s inspiring”).

At times—that is, when Stern allowed her to speak—the conversation was illuminating and very endearing. Addressing her recent split from Canadian contractor Dan Hayhurst, Anderson offered a perhaps unintentionally hilarious response. “I could just babble on about so many things, and he would just go, ‘huh?’” she admitted, giggling. “I tried and it just didn’t work. I just thought, ‘I am definitely not going to put up with this.’”