Pamela Anderson turned heads at the Met Gala 2025, debuting a new micro-bob and wearing a glorious Tory Burch gown embroidered with crystals. Obviously, she looked incredible. That didn’t stop one tabloid from describing the Last Showgirl star as “frumpy” and “worlds away from Baywatch glory days”.
I shuddered when I read the headline, not least because I’d basically forgotten the word ‘frumpy’ exists. A quick Google search defines frumpy as “dowdy and old-fashioned (typically used of a woman or her clothes).” Ah yes, old-school sexism at its finest.
While some people shamed Pamela for her Met Gala look, most were defending her. “Leave her alone. She’s still beautiful and is ageing gracefully!” wrote one X user, while another added, “She looks beautiful, fresh and chic. Let women age.”
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It’s a classic case of ‘Women Just Can’t Win’. If Pamela Anderson decided, as is her right, to wear a tight, skimpy gown to the Met Gala, she would be castigated for not ‘dressing her age’ or, as we in the UK like to say, being ‘mutton dressed as lamb’. Gross, we know.
But the endlessly brilliant thing about Pamela is that she does everything on her own terms, from her activism to her fashion choices and makeup-free beauty looks. This is something that she’s truly had to fight for over the years: first with an intimate video of her being leaked and sold without her consent, and again when the incident was dramatised in Hulu’s Pam & Tommy – again, without her consent.
In her latest film, The Last Showgirl, Pamela portrays Shelly, a performer who powerfully reckons with how sexism and ageism have shaped her career choices. Apt, don’t you think? Indeed, in an interview with Dazed, the actor reflects, “Shelly is very different from me, so this was creating a character from scratch, but I had a lot of empathy for her because I’ve been in similar situations.”