According to Pamela Anderson’s new memoir, Love, Pamela, Tim Allen flashed her on the set of Home Improvement during the first day of filming. After Allen denied the allegation in a conversation with Newsweek, Anderson, who was 23 at the time of the alleged incident, publicly responded by telling Vanity Fair, “This true story is just one of many surreal and uncomfortable situations I learned to navigate. I have no ill will toward Tim but, like the rest, it should never have happened.”
The flashgate saga continued yesterday when a video resurfaced of Tim Allen flashing another Home Improvement co-star, Patricia Richardson. However, Richardson told TMZ that Allen was fully clothed underneath. Unlike the Pamela Anderson claim, the Richardson incident took place while filming in front of an audience.
Now, the one person you’d least expect to defend Tim Allen in this case has, indeed, come to his defense. It’s none other than Pamela Anderson herself.
Today, she spoke to Variety about the 1991 incident and stated, “I’m not a very judgmental person. Tim is a comedian, it’s his job to cross the line. I’m sure he had no bad intentions.”
That’s certainly a gracious take. Perhaps Anderson means to calm a storm that she may feel somewhat guilty about — even though she shouldn’t, assuming the incident is true. Or maybe more likely, she’s just trying to tell her story without others facing backlash. Whatever the case, she wants to make it clear that things were different back in 1991, and maybe that’s more her overall point. Or her hope.
“Times have changed,” she added via text message to the Variety interviewer. “I doubt anyone would try that post #MeToo. It’s a new world.”
In this new world, Pamela Anderson seems intent on framing her own story — as a memoirist, a documentary subject, and as a commenter in the public sphere. Given the avalanche of exploitation Anderson’s survived, from the theft and subsequent distribution of her honeymoon sex tape with ex-husband Tommy Lee without her consent, to an entire TV series about the distribution of her sex tape also made without her consent, maybe it’s only fitting that her perspective on “flashgate” is the final word.
