Pamela Anderson's Relationship With Hugh Hefner Was Not What You Might Expect

There's no arguing that Pamela Anderson is your quintessential Playboy model. While there's a long list of faces that have graced the pages of the magazine, Anderson happens to be the only one featured on its cover 14 separate times — more than any other model.

Anderson's career took off when she first appeared in the publication in 1989. From there, she was able to bag more modeling gigs and got her foot in the door of the acting industry. Not long after, she cemented her icon status when she starred in "Baywatch," the hit show that made everyone remember her as The Girl in the Red Swimsuit.

But Hollywood hasn't been kind to Anderson, especially after her sex tape with her ex-husband Tommy Lee went viral (before "going viral" was even a popular term). In an interview on "Piers Morgan's Life Stories," the model-turned-actor dishes that many men tried to take advantage of her, with Harvey Weinstein "bullying" her and actor Sylvester Stallone propositioning her. "[Stallone] offered me a condo and a Porsche to be his 'number one girl,'" she dished. "I said, 'Does that mean there is a ­number two?' He said, 'Of course.'" Per Anderson, herself, there was only a single person in the industry who treated her well. It was Hugh Hefner.

Hugh Hefner, Playboy's former head honcho, who died in 2017, had a dicey reputation to say the least. Former Playmates who lived with the founder at his famous mansion exposed his alleged horrendous acts after his death, with his former lover Holly Madison telling "Secrets of Playboy" that they were "all kind of gaslit and expected to think of Hef as like this really good guy." One of his former lovers, Karissa Shannon, also revealed on the show that sexual relations with Hefner felt like "assault" and that he used "control mechanisms completely through everything."

Pamela Anderson had a different description of Hefner, though. Speaking with The Sunday Times, she shared that the late businessman was the only person who had "treated her with complete and utter respect." She also expressed gratitude over how Hefner helped her turn her life around. "Doing that first photoshoot [her first cover with Playboy] gave me this little kind of portal on what it felt like to be a sensual woman. My sexuality was mine. I took my power back."

In her book, "Love, Pamela," Anderson also looked back at her first meeting with Hefner fondly. She wrote that he reminded her of a "mythological figure," and that from the get-go, she thought he was "a true gentleman — elegant, passionate, so charming, and yet with that little-boy giggle."

When Hugh Hefner died, Pamela Anderson's grief was felt around the world. She took to Instagram to show how much she was mourning by posting a video of herself in tears, along with a poem that she titled "Goodbye #Hef." In it, she sang the praises of the Playboy founder and thanked him for helping her become a household name."

"You taught me everything important about freedom and respect. / Outside of my family / You were the most important person in my life. / You gave me my life," a line from the poem read. "I will miss your everything. / Thank you for making the world a better place. / A freeer and sexier place."

And while a number of her fellow Playmates spoke against Hefner, Anderson decided to come to his defense. "He's empowered so many women and broke down walls," she said on "The View," and went as far as calling him a "civil activist." And, when she was questioned if she ever felt exploited during her Playboy days, the model said that she did everything of her own volition. "We exploited ourselves," she asserted. "We had the choice to do it, and we weren't vulnerable in that way that he was exploiting us."