by Pamela Anderson’s marriage to Kid Rock has exploded borate.
In his book, With love, Pamela, the Baywatch the alum recalls falling in love with wild rocker, real name Bob Ritchie, as well as the messy end to their relationship. They met at a benefit concert and were first together from 2001 to 2002 and then got back together in 2006, but separated four months after the wedding.
The breakup — during which she claims the “Redneck Paradise” singer called her a “whore and worse” — came after a screening of Sacha Baron Cohen’s mockumentary borate, which was released on November 3, 2006, at the home of then Universal Studios chairman and COO Ron Meyers’ home. Anderson recalled that it was a star-studded event with Steven Spielberg among the guests. Anderson said he didn’t tell Rock, whom she married that July, that she was in the film.
“The screening … didn’t go well,” she wrote in her memoir, which is out now. “I didn’t tell Bob I was in the movie, because I wanted to surprise him.” However, “I forgot the part of the film that references the ‘sex tape,'” obviously referring to the home video she made with first husband Tommy Lee. “Bob stormed out, calling me a bitch and worse. He was embarrassed and his reaction wasn’t considered.”
Anderson recalled host Laird Hamilton yelling, amid the pair’s nasty outburst, “Don’t get mad at Superwoman when she takes off her cape!” This didn’t help. Anderson said she “chased Bob to his car” but “he walked off, leaving me there alone. I turned around and apologized, then asked if anyone could give me a ride home.”
Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat character was obsessed with Anderson:
When Anderson got home from the screening, an enraged Bob was smashing a picture on the wall. He said he was sick of waking up to a picture of me and [her famed photographer pal] David LaChapelle every day. But it wasn’t me and David, it was Marilyn Monroe and Bert Stern.”
However, “we broke up” after the explosion and “I haven’t kept in touch with Bob.” The split was notoriously bitter. After publicly revealing that she suffered a miscarriage with Rock’s child, she claimed she was lying.
borate star Cohen opened up in 2019 about his movie ending Anderson and Rock’s relationship, admitting he thought it was a joke. She said she texted Anderson after Rock walked out of the screening to see what she thought of the film. “She texted back, ‘She’s getting a divorce,'” she claimed she said. “I was like, ‘Why?’ And she says, ‘The movie.’ And I thought it was a joke.”
In Anderson’s book, she admitted that she wrote that their “differences were so obvious” right from the start. However, after her turbulent marriage to Lee—which she divorced in 1998, but whom she continued to see on and off for years—she was seeking stability for her two young sons: Brandon Thomas Lee and Dylan Jagger Lee. .
Anderson wrote that Rock called Lee to tell him he was in love with Anderson and wanted to marry her. “Tommy told him to fuck off—and that he was going to kill him,” she wrote. “But Bob and I started dating anyway. We broke up a few times because of Tommy’s interference or meddling, and I wasn’t so sure if I could take the next step. But it finally got to me. She was sexy and her talent was seductive, she drew me in and I was helpless in the face of her rock star advances.
The summer they were married, Anderson was on a superyacht in Saint-Tropez with his children and a friend when “Bob showed up unexpectedly” and jumped aboard. She proposed a few days later. Before getting married, Anderson threw a bachelorette party, hosted by “damsel of dishonor” LaChapelle, who is gay, and attended by her “gorgeous all-gay crew.” She said Rock sent his security guard with him to make sure she “returned to Saint-Tropez in one piece.” She did it, despite the wild exploits of Las Vegas, and arrived at her wedding, on a waverunner, to LaChapelle, wearing a captain’s hat.
He said Rock “didn’t appreciate my close relationship” with LaChapelle and “also didn’t believe David was actually gay.” After the nuptials, Anderson—who is LaChapelle’s muse—wanted to jump off the boat in her Heatherette’s wedding dress, and LaChapelle prodded her. However, “Bob stopped me and said, ‘No! … I have reluctantly chosen to obey my new husband,” she wrote.
After the wedding, Anderson and her two sons “started spending more time in Detroit,” Rock’s hometown. They had a bigger wedding there, including musical performances by Bob Seger and Hank Williams Jr. She said they lived “a real rock-and-roll lifestyle, gritty and soulful.”
“Bob had taken a lot with me and the two boys,” she wrote, noting “he was really great with them and had a little son himself… There were always adventures [for the kids]. They rode dirt bikes and snowmobiles and horses… The boys loved Bob.” (In Anderson’s Netflix documentary, Pamela, A love story, she reminisced with her children about life in Detroit and the younger Dylan had no memory of it. “Did we move to Detroit at some point in our lives?” he asked, shocked.)
Anderson says their differences soon caught up with them and she would have left to take some time out and think. Whenever she did, he would show up and woo her. When he decided he wanted to move back to Malibu, California, Rock bought them a new home there. However, he did write that just before they moved in there was a screening of Borat – and you know the rest.
The September following their split, Anderson attended the 2007 MTV VMAs. Rock and Lee were both there and famously got into a physical altercation over her.
“Unfortunately, I was asked to present an award to Kanye West at MTV’s Video Music Awards,” she wrote. “I saw Bob on the red carpet and he looked at me and said, ‘Look what the cat dragged in.’ Then I saw Tommy, he came in the other way, sneaking in and taking a seat and when I slid beside him to sit down, Tommy pulled me onto his knee… Bob saw it all and was furious from his seat in front. After presenting the award to Kanye, Alicia Keys [performed and] Tommy and Bob dove into each other. Fists were flying and it all went live on TV. I went out… It was staged. MTV must have been thrilled. I told the press waiting outside that we had been scammed. Boys will be boys.”
Kid Rock, who was cited by police for misdemeanor over the fight, later discussed the incident, while testifying in an unrelated trial. He said he always tried to be the bigger person with “disrespectful” Lee when he was married to Anderson and helped raise her children. After the split, he claimed Lee called him from Anderson’s phone and made threats. Rock said he told him the next time he saw him, he was going down. The next time they were in the same room it was the VMAs. Rock claimed that Lee started by walking up to him and sitting down next to him.
According to an MTV News article at the time, eyewitnesses claimed that Lee “gaped at Rock” as he passed. “It wasn’t clear exactly what Lee said to Rock, but apparently after his words, Rock slapped the drummer… Lee, said an eyewitness, attempted to fight back but, before he was able to deliver One shot, Rock’s face was punched.”
Anderson went on to marry three other men (only two legally – Rick Salomon and Dan Hayhurst) and has been single for the past year. She’s been busy promoting her memoir of hers, With love, Pamela, and the Netflix documentary, Pamela, a love story, which are both out now.
