Pamela Anderson's first boyfriend in ninth grade decided it would be funny to gang-rape her with six of his friends. Seven boys. One girl. She was fourteen years old.
It wasn't the first time. By the time her boyfriend and his friends pinned her down, she had already been destroyed twice.
A female babysitter started molesting her when she was six. The abuse continued for four years - "the games she used to make me play on her," Pamela wrote decades later, unable to describe them even in her own memoir. The babysitter died in a car accident years later. The secret died with her. Pamela never told anyone.
At twelve, a friend brought her to her boyfriend's house. The boyfriend's older brother - a 25-year-old man - offered to teach her backgammon. Then offered a back massage. Then raped her. She later described it as her "first heterosexual experience."
"Needless to say, I had a hard time trusting humans," she said. "I just wanted off this earth."
Her father was an alcoholic who once held her mother's face above a lit stove. Her mother worked two jobs and never knew what was happening to her daughter. Animals were Pamela's only comfort - she spent hours hiding with her dog, avoiding a world that had already shown her its worst.
Then Hollywood found her. Baywatch. Playboy. The red swimsuit. The world saw a sex symbol - blonde, tanned, untouchable. Nobody saw the girl who had been systematically broken before she ever stepped in front of a camera.
She married Tommy Lee. He kicked her while she held their seven-week-old son. Grabbed her arm, twisted it, threw her and the baby into a wall. He got six months. She filed for divorce, got a restraining order - and kept meeting him in secret. She called him "the only time I was ever truly in love."
Their private footage was stolen from a safe in their garage and sold to Penthouse. The whole world watched it. She has never watched it herself.
Another boyfriend pushed her out of a moving car. Another stripped her naked and left her in bushes. Another threw a silverware container at her head. "They would turn violent, mean, cruel, so quickly," she wrote.
On her first day of filming Home Improvement at 23, she says Tim Allen opened his robe and flashed her. She had been in Hollywood less than a year.
For thirty years, the world reduced Pamela Anderson to a punchline. The bimbo. The sex tape. Nobody ever asked how a girl from a small Canadian town ended up running from something nobody could see.
She told her full story in her memoir Love, Pamela in 2023. She was fifty-five years old.
Does the world owe an apology to the woman it spent thirty years laughing at - or was she always just the easiest person in the room to not take seriously?
Pamela Anderson's first boyfriend in ninth grade decided it would be funny to gang-rape her with six of his friends. Seven boys. One girl. She was fourteen years old.
It wasn't the first time. By the time her boyfriend and his friends pinned her down, she had already been destroyed twice.
A female babysitter started molesting her when she was six. The abuse continued for four years - "the games she used to make me play on her," Pamela wrote decades later, unable to describe them even in her own memoir. The babysitter died in a car accident years later. The secret died with her. Pamela never told anyone.
At twelve, a friend brought her to her boyfriend's house. The boyfriend's older brother - a 25-year-old man - offered to teach her backgammon. Then offered a back massage. Then raped her. She later described it as her "first heterosexual experience."
"Needless to say, I had a hard time trusting humans," she said. "I just wanted off this earth."
Her father was an alcoholic who once held her mother's face above a lit stove. Her mother worked two jobs and never knew what was happening to her daughter. Animals were Pamela's only comfort - she spent hours hiding with her dog, avoiding a world that had already shown her its worst.
Then Hollywood found her. Baywatch. Playboy. The red swimsuit. The world saw a sex symbol - blonde, tanned, untouchable. Nobody saw the girl who had been systematically broken before she ever stepped in front of a camera.
She married Tommy Lee. He kicked her while she held their seven-week-old son. Grabbed her arm, twisted it, threw her and the baby into a wall. He got six months. She filed for divorce, got a restraining order - and kept meeting him in secret. She called him "the only time I was ever truly in love."
Their private footage was stolen from a safe in their garage and sold to Penthouse. The whole world watched it. She has never watched it herself.
Another boyfriend pushed her out of a moving car. Another stripped her naked and left her in bushes. Another threw a silverware container at her head. "They would turn violent, mean, cruel, so quickly," she wrote.
On her first day of filming Home Improvement at 23, she says Tim Allen opened his robe and flashed her. She had been in Hollywood less than a year.
For thirty years, the world reduced Pamela Anderson to a punchline. The bimbo. The sex tape. Nobody ever asked how a girl from a small Canadian town ended up running from something nobody could see.
She told her full story in her memoir Love, Pamela in 2023. She was fifty-five years old.
Does the world owe an apology to the woman it spent thirty years laughing at - or was she always just the easiest person in the room to not take seriously?
In 1990, Guns N' Roses fired drummer Steven Adler over heroin and ended his partnership in the band. He said they wanted to give him $2,000 and throw him out on the street.
Adler sued for his share, which he valued at $4 million to $10 million. In 1993, before the jury could reach a verdict, the band agreed to pay him $2.3 million.
In the video below, Slash, his friend since junior high, testifies about the paper Adler signed. "We told him exactly what it was about, but Steven's never really known exactly what he was doing."
The paper, signed in March 1990, gave Adler 30 days to get off heroin. It also made him an employee of the band instead of a partner.
He didn't get clean, and his drums on "Civil War" alone took two days to record. "The song was great, but Steven couldn't play," Slash said, and in July the band fired him.
At the 1993 trial, Adler admitted he was still using heroin and said he signed while on withdrawal medication. Axl Rose testified: "My intent with the document was that Steven quit drugs, play properly or be fired."
After the settlement, jurors stopped to shake Adler's hand. "We're not thrilled about having to pay Steven Adler more money than we already were paying him," the band said.
In 2016, Slash and Duff McKagan reunited with Axl Rose, and the reunion tour grossed $584 million. Adler played a song or two at a few shows: "They just didn't give me the opportunity."
Did Guns N' Roses fire a drummer who could no longer play, or cut a sick partner out of his share?
In 1990, Guns N' Roses fired drummer Steven Adler over heroin and ended his partnership in the band. He said they wanted to give him $2,000 and throw him out on the street.
Adler sued for his share, which he valued at $4 million to $10 million. In 1993, before the jury could reach a verdict, the band agreed to pay him $2.3 million.
In the video below, Slash, his friend since junior high, testifies about the paper Adler signed. "We told him exactly what it was about, but Steven's never really known exactly what he was doing."
The paper, signed in March 1990, gave Adler 30 days to get off heroin. It also made him an employee of the band instead of a partner.
He didn't get clean, and his drums on "Civil War" alone took two days to record. "The song was great, but Steven couldn't play," Slash said, and in July the band fired him.
At the 1993 trial, Adler admitted he was still using heroin and said he signed while on withdrawal medication. Axl Rose testified: "My intent with the document was that Steven quit drugs, play properly or be fired."
After the settlement, jurors stopped to shake Adler's hand. "We're not thrilled about having to pay Steven Adler more money than we already were paying him," the band said.
In 2016, Slash and Duff McKagan reunited with Axl Rose, and the reunion tour grossed $584 million. Adler played a song or two at a few shows: "They just didn't give me the opportunity."
Did Guns N' Roses fire a drummer who could no longer play, or cut a sick partner out of his share?
A mother in Roswell, Georgia was told something had happened at the pool, and police needed her to stay calm and help them. Her 17-year-old daughter, Mercedes, had snuck out at 1 AM to meet someone and never came home.
Her younger sister had to describe her to officers while barely holding herself together: shoulder-length hair, blonde and brunette. Then she gave them the name that mattered: "CJ, but his real name is Courtney," and she could show them exactly which building he lived in.
The officers didn't rush to his door. They wanted eyes on the apartment first, because if they made contact, they had to be sure they'd get him. The mother couldn't understand the wait: "I gave a description. You know what you got."
Courtney Foster, 20, lived in the same complex and had been texting Mercedes past midnight. When detectives questioned him, he had a story ready. She said she was getting dressed to come back, he said, and he simply went to sleep.
Her grandmother found her near the pool the next morning. The death was ruled a homicide by drowning, and Foster was charged with concealing a death.
He said he went to sleep, but his phone was awake the whole night.
Mercedes was 17 and should have walked back through her front door that morning. Watch how her sister's few words gave police the name they needed.
A mother in Roswell, Georgia was told something had happened at the pool, and police needed her to stay calm and help them. Her 17-year-old daughter, Mercedes, had snuck out at 1 AM to meet someone and never came home.
Her younger sister had to describe her to officers while barely holding herself together: shoulder-length hair, blonde and brunette. Then she gave them the name that mattered: "CJ, but his real name is Courtney," and she could show them exactly which building he lived in.
The officers didn't rush to his door. They wanted eyes on the apartment first, because if they made contact, they had to be sure they'd get him. The mother couldn't understand the wait: "I gave a description. You know what you got."
Courtney Foster, 20, lived in the same complex and had been texting Mercedes past midnight. When detectives questioned him, he had a story ready. She said she was getting dressed to come back, he said, and he simply went to sleep.
Her grandmother found her near the pool the next morning. The death was ruled a homicide by drowning, and Foster was charged with concealing a death.
He said he went to sleep, but his phone was awake the whole night.
Mercedes was 17 and should have walked back through her front door that morning. Watch how her sister's few words gave police the name they needed.
“Doesn’t this feel good?” I said no. He said, “Someday you’ll know what I’m talking about.”
Teri Hatcher was 5 when her uncle, Richard Stone, started. He would drive her places, pull over in a parking lot and touch her. She told no one. She became Lois Lane, a Bond girl, a Desperate Housewife. Then she read about a 14-year-old girl named Sarah who had shot herself with her father’s gun. Her note said: “You’re probably thinking a normal teenager doesn’t do this, well ask Dick. Please forgive me.” Dick was the same uncle. It should have been over right there.
In the video below, Teri tells Oprah what he did to her.
“He used to drive me places in the car and then pull over in a parking lot and touch me.”
“I remember the color of the carpet.”
“If I let sex feel good, then somehow he was right.”
It got worse. Stone admitted only to a “passionate kiss” with Sarah when she was 12. Police believed he had abused three more girls. None would testify, not even the 12-year-old Sarah had made a suicide pact with. A hearing to dismiss the case was set.
Teri remembered thinking: “He’s been doing this for 35 years. Who else has he done this to?”
Two days before that hearing, she sat down with police.
Stone pleaded guilty to four counts of child molestation and got 14 years. He died in prison six years later.
She had stayed silent for 30 years, sure she’d end up on a tabloid cover. Should she have spoken up sooner, or was that never a 5-year-old’s job?
“Doesn’t this feel good?” I said no. He said, “Someday you’ll know what I’m talking about.”
Teri Hatcher was 5 when her uncle, Richard Stone, started. He would drive her places, pull over in a parking lot and touch her. She told no one. She became Lois Lane, a Bond girl, a Desperate Housewife. Then she read about a 14-year-old girl named Sarah who had shot herself with her father’s gun. Her note said: “You’re probably thinking a normal teenager doesn’t do this, well ask Dick. Please forgive me.” Dick was the same uncle. It should have been over right there.
In the video below, Teri tells Oprah what he did to her.
“He used to drive me places in the car and then pull over in a parking lot and touch me.”
“I remember the color of the carpet.”
“If I let sex feel good, then somehow he was right.”
It got worse. Stone admitted only to a “passionate kiss” with Sarah when she was 12. Police believed he had abused three more girls. None would testify, not even the 12-year-old Sarah had made a suicide pact with. A hearing to dismiss the case was set.
Teri remembered thinking: “He’s been doing this for 35 years. Who else has he done this to?”
Two days before that hearing, she sat down with police.
Stone pleaded guilty to four counts of child molestation and got 14 years. He died in prison six years later.
She had stayed silent for 30 years, sure she’d end up on a tabloid cover. Should she have spoken up sooner, or was that never a 5-year-old’s job?