by Model, actress and environmental activist Pamela Anderson is on a rehabilitation mission.
Reached at her home in Ladysmith, British Columbia, she says the goal is to renovate the six-acre Vancouver Island property where she spent her early years and now hopes to become a multi-generational haven for herself, his parents and sons. . That’s the subject of her new HGTV Canada reality show, “Pamela’s Garden of Eden,” which premiered Thursday.
Meanwhile, the Hollywood star says she was hit with a rush of soul-searching: While on the property she wrote a memoir due out in late January and she’s set to release a documentary Netflix on his life.
Even though large-scale home renovations are a work in progress, “I’m a work in progress,” Anderson says.
“Coming back here was really disappointing. For me, it’s very emotional,” Anderson says of returning to the roots of a childhood she described as difficult.
“When I got home, I think I wasn’t as happy as usual. I came home to really deal with some things. There are some things in your life that you put in place. kind of aside and it was so comforting for me to come home and it took me a while to figure out what I was doing to myself.
Further details of her early life and career as a colorful celebrity will be revealed in future memoir and streaming projects, she said, acknowledging that the recent reset of small-town life is a far cry from gripping tabloid exploits from its 90s heyday.
“I had never flown when I left this island. You know, I left the island and went to Vancouver, then I moved to Los Angeles, then I went around the world and the south of France for a year before moving,” explains Anderson, who rose to fame as a Playboy pin. -up and “Baywatch” television star.
“I was restless when I was here. And I had to learn to be comfortable, just relax and enjoy and put all my creative juices into this, make it an art project, listen to other people’s ideas .
Anderson says she bought the property about 30 years ago from her grandmother, believing she “just needed some Canadian roots” and would move there one day. It would take longer than expected, she suggests in a first episode that briefly alludes to years of a “busy” life in Los Angeles, a busy career and multiple high-profile marriages.
She says it was “heartbreaking” at first to return to the sprawling waterfront property, which includes three buildings known as the roadhouse, the boathouse and the cabin.
“I felt like this place was like a broken heart, that I really had to turn around.”
These days, Anderson says she relishes the new creative tasks that occupy her time — painting, painting, pottery and canning vegetables among them — while discovering her personal design style.
She acknowledges a lot of trial and error — and perhaps conflict — over design choices, laughing at the folly of inviting cameras to watch her “melt down which doorknob to put on your door.”
“I’m not perfect. Some ideas are really bad and some don’t work and some things I’ve refinished and fixed and I’m wasting a lot of money fixing those problems,” says the 55-year-old, who has started the adventure with a budget of $750,000. .
The crew, too, is a collection of “misfits,” she adds.
“I wanted guys (for whom) this is their second or third chance at life. I wanted to bring people here who weren’t, you know, perfect people. I wanted everyone to have a fun project to do as a kind of place of healing.
She introduces one of them in the first episode as her husband, revealing little about their dating other than that he’s “a normal guy, which is nice”. Anderson declines to say more over the phone, and a spokesperson for HGTV Canada later said the couple filed for separation in January 2022.
The show gives us a window into Anderson’s goofy side as she banters with the crew, and her well-established love of nature as she chats about local wildlife and walks barefoot on the beach in dresses wide and flowing.
It’s a far cry from the curvaceous, hairdo version of Anderson that made her a beauty icon, she admits. But it’s genuine, she adds, and it’s partly an overture to her two adult sons who urged her to do the show because they saw a disconnect between her public persona and the woman who ‘they know.
“My sons were (like), ‘Mom, people don’t understand who you are,'” she says of Brandon Lee, a producer on the show, and Dylan Lee.
“I don’t really mind – I’m me. But it bothers them. »
Anderson is happy to say that her sons are spending “more and more” time at the property as the renovation goes on, and she boasts of personal triumphs, including a 460 square meter garden bursting with produce. The “heart and soul of the property” is a rose garden featuring Anderson’s favorite hot pink variety.
“I had them in all my flower arrangements all over the world. Wherever I was, who I was with, I always knew it was my rose,” Anderson says.
“I got 75 of these roses and planted them myself.”
“They all survived, which was a miracle.”
“Pamela’s Garden of Eden” airs Thursdays on HGTV Canada and Fridays on StackTV.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on November 3, 2022.
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