Why Pamela Anderson Left Hollywood for Canada

Pamela Anderson made her name in the U.S. as a star of shows like Baywatch, but in 2020, the actress decided to move back home to her native Canada. It ended up giving her a new perspective on life and helped her determine how she would move forward. 

The former Playboy model opened up about her decision to relocate in a recent interview with Women's Wear Daily. She returned to her beloved Vancouver Island with the intention of looking inward. 

"I guess [it was] a homecoming, you could say, to really kind of look at my life and remember who I was—not what other people were telling me I was—and I didn’t want anything that had happened to me define me. I wanted what I do to define me," she said. "All these realizations came to me in [my] rose garden."

Getting some space to breathe and think was something she'd been thinking about for some time. When looking back on the decision, Anderson acknowledged she'd reached a breaking point in her life, though it wasn't all roses—no pun intended—as soon as she got there.

"A few years back, I kind of gave up at some point and needed a change," she told Better Homes & Gardens in August. "I was not in a good space when I moved back to Canada. I don't know what happened over the last few decades, but I feel now so far removed from the image of who I was."

"I felt very sad and lonely," she added. "I didn't feel just misunderstood, I felt like I had really screwed up, that my whole life was a bundle of mistakes. I was hard on myself, and I thought I put my family through a lot and put my kids through so much. I came to a point where I decided to move home and disappear and get into my garden."

Anderson has continued to demonstrate her new approach to life, especially life in the spotlight, in recent years. The death of her longtime makeup artist led her to ditch wearing makeup last year and only appear fresh-faced in public. And back in September, she admitted she has only started feeling comfortable wearing a swimsuit at age 57. 

Anderson's latest film, the star-studded The Last Showgirl, is in theaters Dec. 13. She remains in her childhood home in Ladysmith, British Columbia with her dogs today.