I’m writing a book called Saving Women From Feminism — it’s going to be a hot potato!
was accused of rape in Sweden, whom Pamela began visiting at his hideaway in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in late 2016.
She’s always been coy about the exact nature of her friendship with Assange, but she sees him every time she is in the capital, most recently just a few weeks ago. She thinks he is a ‘genius’ and that the rape charges (now dropped) against him were ‘a set-up’.
Once upon a time she would insist that she loved him and found him ‘romantic and brave’. Now she admits that they never had sex. ‘I have such a connection to him but it isn’t a physical relationship, no,’ she confirms.
Pamela and Adil met at the end of May last year at the Monaco Grand Prix. He and his former girlfriend Sidonie Biémont (age 36) split amicably at the start of 2017, though they remain on good terms. Not least because they are parents to twin boys, Zayn and Madi, who were born in September 2016.
‘He has a lot of integrity when it comes to family,’ says Pamela. ‘He is very loyal.’
After Monaco, Adil and Pamela spent a month living in Aix en Provence before moving to Marseille where they stayed in the InterContinental hotel for another month while looking for home together.
Coincidentally we meet today in the same hotel, the most luxurious in the city. Of course I had expected her to be a bit of a bombshell, but nothing quite prepares one for Pamela in the flesh. Here she comes now, clipping across the marble foyer in her spike heels, wearing a polka dot dress that clings to every curve and provides a straining frame for the double whammy of her full beam cleavage. Her waist is tiny, her blonde hair is sexily tousled and men fall silent and just stare, a petrified forest of stunned testosterone, as she sashays past. Brunch has been laid out in a suite upstairs, where Pamela ignores the elaborate platter of fruits and goes straight for the buttery croissants while ordering a cappuccino. I thought you were vegan! ‘I am, but I am a very naughty vegan. I haven’t eaten meat for over 20 years, but I am not strict about veganism because I don’t like depravation of any kind,’ she purrs, in her breathy little voice. She and Adil don’t even abstain from sex before he has any important fixtures, as demanded by some footballing disciplines. ‘Not if I’ve got anything to do with it,’ she says, almost with a titter. Then she looks more serious. ‘No, that rule does not apply to us.’
In her defence, she points out her vegan shoes and her vegan handbag, talks of the vegan restaurant she opened in St Tropez in the summer (but which closed after four days).
‘I’m just trying to make veganism sexy.’
To this end, she has just ‘created’ a vegan champagne called Amourfou. ‘I didn’t realise most champagnes are filtered through animal organs, did you?’ When I wonder aloud if her infamous implants are vegan, too, she says; ‘I’m not talking about my boobs. I don’t want that to be the headline.’
SHE is bare-legged, smells of fake tan and has a welter of bruises on her upper left arm, a legacy from her recent appearance onstage in Germany with magician Hans Klok, known as ‘the Dutch David Copperfield’. Ten years ago she played a season with him in Las Vegas as his assistant and has reprised the role on his current European tour.
‘What girl doesn’t want to be a magician’s assistant, right? It is one of the most glamorous things ever,’ she cries.
Her star turn includes appearing (and disappearing) in a dangerous trick called Fire Spikes which involves her being locked in a box into which a grid of flaming spears are inserted.
Her hair gets singed, her arms get bruised but she doesn’t care, because being on stage is such a mad adrenaline rush. ‘And a nice change from my activism.’
Ah yes, Pamela and her crusades. Falling in love appears not to have quenched her appetite for doing good. In any spare time left after taking vegan meals to Assange (‘Bring me something exotic!’ he says), Pamela has been appalled by the touring animal circuses in France and is lobbying mayors to have them stopped. She is also campaigning to have foie gras production banned and wants Uber and minicab drivers everywhere to be vetted for criminal records — to help keep women safer.
If you search YouTube you’ll see her looking impossibly glamorous in a recent Ride Responsibly ad about the dangers of apphailed taxis.
‘Just because it is an app doesn’t mean it is safe,’ she says. ‘A young girl who is alone and has been drinking and needs to get home is very vulnerable. This is not victim blaming, it is just saying put some more thought into it.’
She is not a fan of today’s feminism. ‘I hate the victimhood element of it. It is demeaning.
‘A lot of women still like to be sexy, still want men to make the first move — which is empowering for us. We don’t want to be victims and we don’t want to make enemies of men.
‘I am writing a book called Saving Women From Feminism. It is going to be a hot potato!’
For someone who has been through multiple divorces and been explicitly objectified throughout her life — Richard Branson once sold Virgin cola in a ‘Pammy’ shaped bottle — she remains a diehard romantic.
Despite her past as a Playboy centrefold and the infamous leaking of her sex tape 20 years ago, she is anti online porn and dating apps, both of which she believes to be destructive to human intimacy. She is keen on sex, but only with someone she loves.
‘The best sex is in a committed relationship, knowing someone’s nuances and sensuality is what makes you a good lover. You must be brave enough for intimacy.’
Has her sexual desire diminished over the years? ‘I don’t think so, no.’ Could she ever imagine getting married again? ‘Of course!’ She is funny and friendly, easy to like. After moving her clothes and her dog Zuzu to France, it looks like our girl is in it for the long haul. She is learning to speak French, so that she and Rami can have deeper discussions about tofu and politics.
‘He doesn’t speak very good English, I don’t speak very good French, but we have the body language, the language of love, another communication level that is deeper than words,’ she says. ‘We have something special. It is amazing how it just clicks.’
If only Rami could be put on prescription for menopausal women everywhere! What a tonic that would be.
In the meantime, he has clearly given Pamela Anderson a new reason for living, but she still needs some extra help with the changes in her mind and body.
To this end, she has made an appointment with an Ayurvedic doctor. ‘The moodiness, the tension. Sometimes I am not myself and I realise that I need to manage it a bit better. I don’t wish to torture everybody around me,’ she says.
And what else does she wish for in her mad, magnifique world of Fire Spikes and vegan champagne and fugitives and football?
‘I want to do a French film with a cool, edgy director and speak French in it. Something I could be really proud of,’ says the former Baywatch star. There is nothing like something new to make you feel younger and younger.’