Pamela Anderson opened up about being diagnosed with hepatitis C in the past, as she was honored at the amfAR Gala in Venice.
“It was a death sentence. That’s what my doctor told me — that I probably had around 10 years to live,” the Baywatch alum said at the event on Sunday, September 6, per Variety. “I’m sure that colored and corrupted my decisions. It was not fear of death, but fear of what might happen to my young children. It turned my life inside out.”
Anderson, 59, who was honored with amfAR’s Award of Courage on Sunday night, reflected on how being diagnosed with the blood-borne viral infection left her feeling vulnerable.
“But my experience of shame and guilt was also an unconscious journey. It stays with me; it haunts me,” she said. “And just like the sexual abuse that I endured as a child, it felt like it was carved into my forehead: damaged goods. And I presented myself as such.”
Anderson first went public with her hepatitis C diagnosis in 2002. She said she contracted the illness by sharing tattoo needles with her ex-husband, Tommy Lee, with whom she shares sons Brandon, 30, and Dylan, 28.
On Sunday, the actress said that she was “hep C free” by 2015 after a cure was found for the infection in 2011 but noted that “it took everything I had in my bank” to pay for her treatment.
The actress said she hasn’t “fully recovered” from her medical ordeal but that her struggles have propelled her career resurgence in movies such as The Last Showgirl and The Naked Gun.
“My truth has come through my work, finding ways to express myself through the arts. It gave me the ammunition I needed, a fertile life to use and play in,” Anderson said. “I’m not a victim, I’m a victor. I am strong and capable, more now than I could ever dream of … I’m not the damsel in distress, no matter how easy that role is to play.”
Anderson previously opened up about overcoming hepatitis C in a 2015 interview with People.
“I think anyone struggling with a disease that they say you can live with is still — it still plays into a lot of your decisions in your life,” she said. “Twenty years ago they told me I would die in 10 years. And 10 years into that, they told me I would be able to live with it and probably die of something else, but it all was very scary stuff.”
“I’ve been too busy, I think it really hasn’t even hit me yet, but it’s exciting because now I get 20 years back on my life,” she added. “They came up with a cure just recently, and you know Tommy was cured a year ago, I was cured just Friday.”
