How much is Pamela Anderson worth?
| Net Worth: | $15 Million |
|---|---|
| Profession: | Professional Actress |
| Date of Birth: | July 1, 1967 (age 55) |
| Country: | Canada (American) |
| Height: | 5 ft 6 in (1.7 m) |
About Pamela Anderson
Pamela Anderson is a Canadian-American actress, activist, author, model, and television personality. She gained popularity from her many appearances in Playboy magazine as well as her work on television. The blonde rose to prominence after she was selected as the “Playmate of the Month” for the magazine in February 1990. She appeared more times since then than any other playboy mate and holds the record for most Playboy covers.
Her status as a sex symbol was further increased in the television series Baywatch, which also helped her receive international recognition. As a television personality, Pamela Anderson took part in Pam: Girl on the Loose!, Dancing with the Stars and VIP Brother. Throughout her acting career, she also starred in multiple films such as Raw Justice, Barb Wire, Scary Movie 3, and Blonde and Blonder. In 2006, Anderson was introduced into the Canadian Walk of Fame.
Besides acting, the blonde bombshell is also a prominent activist for the animal rights movement and a public vegan. She has conducted multiple campaigns and taken part in many programs, and projects, and with many organizations; most notably Peta. Besides being the de facto face of Playboy, Anderson has been published in many other popular magazines. She has posed for the likes of Vogue, GQ, Elle, Rolling Stone, Stuff, and many others.
After she attended a football league game at the BC Place Stadium in Vancouver, Anderson was featured in one of the jumbotron video screens while she was wearing a t-shirt with the logo of Labatt’s Beer. The brewing company ended up hiring Anderson as a spokes model and her then-boyfriend, Dan Ilicic, created a poster of the image and titled it Blue Zone Girl.
Anderson‘s professional career took off after moving to California. After appearing as the cover girl on the Playboy magazine’s October issue, Anderson moved to Los Angeles in 1989 to further pursue her modeling career. A few months later, she became “Playmate of the Month” in February, 1990. It is reported that she likely earned about $10,000 for being Playmate of the Month at the time and also earned a retainer at that time of an around $1,000 per month or a fee for various other appearances. She continued to model for the magazine for 22 years.
After moving to Los Angeles, Anderson got the role of Lisa, a tool time girl, in the Home Improvement, original ABC comedy series. Anderson appeared on the show for two seasons and then left to pursue other projects. One of them was the role as C.J. Parker in Baywatch.
She played for five seasons, starting from 1992 to 1997, and was one of the longest-serving cast members of the drama series. Even to this date, it is one of her best-known roles. At the peak of her acting career she was earning $300,000 per episode from Baywatch. That’s about $6.6 million per season. After factoring in inflation, that’s about $12 million dollars.
After she left the show, Anderson continued to appear on television and act in different movies – Raw Justice, Barb Wire, and Naked Souls. Thanks to her success as a television personality, Anderson guest-hosted Saturday Night Live in April 1997. Then, after spending most of the late ’90s modeling, she went on to star in J.F. Lawton’s action/comedy series V.I.P.
Also in 1997, Pamela was sued for $5 million when she decided not to appear in the film Hello, She Lied (1996). The judge ruled in Anderson’s favor. Stating that she had not entered a legally binding agreement. Anderson later returned to the spotlight in early 2004. First, she posed naked for the May 2004 edition of Playboy and went on to appear nude in many other magazines such as Stuff and GQ.
Breaking Down Anderson’s Net Worth
Pamela Anderson has earned estimated total career income of $27 million dollars. Of that amount, around $2-3 million is expected to have been paid in business related costs. The remainder, $24.5 million, will have been taxed at around 47% as Anderson has been residing in the state of California. After tax, it is estimated that her career earnings are at around $12.98 million dollars, having paid $11.52 million dollars in taxes.
TV Star
During the peak of her career, she diligently worked on many different projects such as No Rules, Scooby-Doo, and Superhero Movie. She later in her career even reprised her role of C.J. Parker in the special films Baywatch: White Thunder and Baywatch the Movie (2017).
In the early parts of the 21st century, Pamela Anderson began appearing in more popular reality shows such as VIP Brother and Dancing with the Stars. In fact, she appeared in various versions of the Big Brother television franchise. In November 2010, she appeared on the fourth season of Bigg Boss (Indian version of Big Brother), in September 2011, she appeared in the UK version of the show’s twelfth season.
A year later in September 2012, Anderson appeared in VIP Brother Bulgaria. She was reportedly paid $550,000 for spending three nights in the house. Just like she did with Big Brother, Anderson received offers to join the Dancing with the Stars televised dance competition. She finally joined in its tenth season. She and her dance partner, Damian Whitewood, were unfortunately the first eliminated from the show. In 2018, Anderson took part in the French version of Dancing with the Stars in its ninth season and, this time, she was eliminated after seven weeks.
Over the years Pamela has maintained her profile appearing on talk shows like Howard Stern‘s The Howard Stern Show and in interviews like Megyn Kelly‘s Today Show, The View and on Loose Women. Her audience likes her honesty and her open attitude, she even admitted on Loose Women that she would “still do Playboy” if she was asked.
Most recently Pamela Anderson plays Roxie Hart in Chicago on Broadway. She had never considered herself to be that kind of person saying, “I was too shy and wouldn’t dare,” however that’s how Forbes claims she is “finding her power”.
Playmate
Pamela Anderson appeared in the pages of Playboy 14 times which is more than any other playmate. She was reportedly paid $25,000 for her last appearance in it. It is also estimated that she received an inflation-adjusted $3,500 per month retainer, or a similar amount was earned during her association with Playboy for attending events.
She has also racked up a long list of other mentions and been ranked for her beauty a very great number of times. Here are just a few of them.
- Ranked #11 of Sci-Fi’s Sexy 50, by Femme Fatales magazine, in 1997.
- Ranked #17 in Stuff magazine’s “102 Sexiest Women in the World”, in 2002.
- She was named E!’s #1 Ultimate Blonde Award, in 2004.
- Ranked #9 on VH1’s 100 Hottest Hotties.
- Voted most powerful female Canadian in Hollywood by a Canadian economic magazine, in 2005.
- Named #40 on Maxim magazine’s Hot 100 Women of 2005 list.
- Named #8 in FHM’s “100 Sexiest Women in the World 2005” special supplement.
- Was named the most powerful Canadian, in 2005.
- Named #24 in FHM magazine’s “100 Sexiest Women in the World 2006” supplement.
Real Estate
In the interim when she was not on TV she was working on a house she bought in Malibu for $1.8 million, in 2000. Eventually she had the house completely torn down having considered that the property location was worth a better build. In the end it cost her an incredible $8 million. No doubt in a head spin she tried to sell the entire property for $7.75 million in 2013, to at least get some of her money back. Nobody was interested at that asking price however, but she did manage to rent it out for as much as $50,000 per month (in high season) which was a big win. At that time she was mostly living in Marseille in the south of France, as well.
Then, finally, in 2021 Pamela did eventually sell the property for $11.8 million. That was after she had been being paid $40,000 per month as part of a long term lease agreement with a tenant.
The cost for the property was $1.8 million in 2000 which is about $3 million in 2022. Then the $8 million she invested was over a number of year but was about $10-12 million after adjusting for inflation. She earned well off the rent, about $480,000 a year. After paying off any debts and so on, it seems to have had turned out to be a pretty good investment, it protected her dollars from inflation and earned her $2-5 million dollars after tax. Not bad, especially considering she was living mostly abroad.
Had she put that money into an index fund in the US stock market over that same period then her investment would have performed much better, of course. However I think what happened is that it was a questionable investment for Pam to rebuild the house, in the first place, and costs got out of hand. Or perhaps the builders or renovators were corrupt, it happens a lot more often than one would think! Fortunately in the end she managed to get her money back and also earn a small profit.
Financial Woes
In the end the real estate investment did pay off, it was close though and in 2009 she was listed in California’s list of “Top 500 Delinquent Tax Payers” after failing to pay $1.7 million in unpaid taxes. Then in 2012 the 45-year-old owed the IRS $259,395.75 for unpaid taxes in 2011, and she also owed the State of California $112,118.90 in unpaid taxes for the same year, according to HuffPost.
These debts were cleared by Pam after she managed to sell her property and soon afterwards began getting rich all over again.
Giving
After reading a story about how Mohini Bhardwaj could not afford to compete at the United States Olympic Trials. Pamela wrote her a $20,000 check and attended the United States Olympic Gymnastic trials in Anaheim on June 26-27 with a “Go Mo” sign to show her support.
Books
During the time she was also posing naked for various magazines, in 2004, Pamela Anderson released her own book. It was titled Star and it told the story of a teenager that’s trying to become popular. The release of her book was somewhat of a success so she decided to release a sequel titled Star Struck just a year later, in 2005. However it is estimated that she earned no more than $300,000 from their releases.
Relationships
Pamela Anderson married to Tommy Lee in 1995. They eventually split in 1998. After she filed for divorce Lee was arrested for spousal abuse after allegedly assaulting her. He was sentenced to six months in jail.
She had also previously contracted Hepatitis C after sharing a tattoo needle with Tommy Lee. The tattoo needle was used to make the barb-wire rings on her left arm. She was an outpatient for the disease at the UCLA, Medical Center. She later confirmed that she and Lee were free from the disease.
Pamela Anderson first met Tommy Lee on December 31,1994 at a Hollywood club called Sanctuary. Just 6 weeks later they had their first date and got married 96 hours after on February 19,1995. They remain good friends and have two sons together, born in 1996 and 1997, Brandon Thomas Lee and Dylan Jagger Lee. It is estimated that Tommy has paid Pamela around $1-2 million dollars as part of a divorce settlement that included spousal support, and child support.
Pamela Anderson’s representatives confirmed that she dropped the “Lee” from her last name, in June 2000. She was at that time engaged to Swedish model, Marcus Schenkenberg after meeting him at the World Music Awards in Monaco. The romance passed however and Anderson became engaged to Kid Rock, in 2002.
After exchanging vowels in Saint-Tropez, France wearing a white bikini, she and Kid Rock also symbolically married in Detroit, Nashville and Malibu. They were were officially married however on August 3, 2006 in a Beverly Hills courthouse. In November of that same year, Pamela filed for a divorce. As Anderson had refused to sign a prenuptial agreement even though Rock asked her to, it is estimated that she may have been paid around $1 million dollars as part of a divorce settlement.
Pamela Anderson and Jon Peters had a relationship in 1989, however it was short lived. They then got back together some 30 years later, in late 2019, finally marrying on January 20, 2020. Then just 12 days after later, on February 1, 2020 it was announced that they had had their marriage annulled. On September 5, 2020, she said that they were never married.
Pamela married Rick Salomon in 2007 and they divorced one year later, in 2008. They remarried in 2014 and again divorced one years later, in 2015. It was reported that Anderson was awarded $1 million as part of a divorce settlement from Rick Salomon.
Pamela Anderson married Dan Hayhurst in 2020 and they remain together.
Did she profit from the Pam and Tommy sex tape?
After a sex tape of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee found its way onto the internet it was suddenly being streamed to millions and Tommy is rightfully losing it over this. At first the couple try and get an injunction as a means to prevent the company, Internet Entertainment Group, from streaming the tape. However the judge denies their request because the website isn’t charging people to view the tape. In that case it was ruled that it is ‘commentary’ and therefore protected by the First Amendment. The founder of Internet Entertainment Group is a baby-faced businessman called Seth Warshavsky who actually shows up at Pam and Tommy’s lawyer’s office and offers them a deal.
Warshavsky is visibly beaming from the turn of events that state his usage is apparently “fair”. The lawsuit also increased traffic to his website and it had already been very profitable for him. He offers to officially buy the rights to the tape from Anderson and Lee but Pamela doesn’t want to profit from such things. At a certain points she says just “give the rights for free” because there are other benefits from a single company owning them; like the tape not appearing on dozens of outlets all over the internet. Lee doesn’t want to give the rights at all because he does not want the public to think that he has given his consent to any of this. Warshavsky explains however that if his company owned the rights he would be able to prevent any other website from streaming the tape. He could also put the tape behind a paywall further reducing the number of eventual viewers.
Warshavsky had started his business off of a simple 1-800-GET-SOME number and a $7,000 loan at the age of 19. Since then, he had already earned an estimated $30 million dollars in revenues from the cam girl ads that ran before and after “his” content. He knew how to swing a deal, too, and in the end Anderson and Lee were signing paperwork giving IEG the rights to a one time webcast with the stipulation that they didn’t didn’t sell, copy, trade or rebroadcast it. “We thought we had won: hardly anyone would see the video on the Internet, and we could recover the tape and start over,” Lee has said. But that never happened. Soon after the tape went viral and even ended up being sold and rented in video stores.
By the time Anderson and Lee sued Warshavsky in federal court, he was already being investigated by the FBI and the Department of Justice over his “business practices”. So when the judge ordered IEG to pay Anderson and Lee $740,000 each, they would never see that money. Warshavsky had already skipped to Bangkok, Thailand.
Anderson’s Total Net Worth
While Pamela Anderson’s after-tax income has been around $12.98 million dollars, she also received money through divorce settlements. An estimated $1-2 million from Tommy Lee, $1 million from Kid Rock and a publicly announced $1 million from Rick Salomon. As divorce settlements include the transfer of assets that have already been taxed, they are not subject to any additional taxes. Therefore, Anderson’s after tax total income has been around $16.48 million dollars.
In her personal life she has likely spent $6-9 million dollars of her career earnings but also probably possesses assets valued at around $1-2 million, not including investment assets. In her investments, she may have earned investment returns of $4-5 million dollars. Therefore, it is estimated that Pamela Anderson has a net worth of around $15 million dollars.
Anderson became successful because she was not just a cover girl for Playboy or other magazines. She did many things at the same time that boosted her popularity all over the world. These include numerous television appearances, including with the Big Brother franchise. In 2005, she was named by multiple magazines as the most powerful Canadian that’s living in Hollywood and a year later, she was introduced into Canada’s Walk of Fame.
Summing-Up
Pamela Anderson is one of the most influential models of the late 20th century. With her stunning beauty, it didn’t take her too long to gain worldwide popularity and admiration Besides posing for Playboy magazine, as well as many other popular magazines, Anderson found her talents in acting and really used them to her advantage. If anything, her performances in her many TV series and movies that she appeared in, especially Home Improvement and Baywatch, prove that she’s not just another pretty face.
