Pamela Anderson has opened up about the terrifying health battle that once left her believing she might not live to see her children grow up.
The 59-year-old Baywatch icon revealed that after she was diagnosed with hepatitis C, a doctor told her she could have roughly 10 years left to live.
Anderson revisited the frightening chapter of her life while accepting amfAR’s Award of Courage at a gala in Venice in September.
At the time of her diagnosis, treatments for hepatitis C were far more limited than they are today, and Anderson said the prognosis completely changed the way she looked at her future.
“It was a death sentence,” Anderson recalled of what she was told by her doctor.
For the actress, the most frightening part was not necessarily the possibility of dying herself. It was the thought of leaving behind her two young sons, Brandon and Dylan, whom she shares with ex-husband Tommy Lee.
Anderson said the diagnosis turned her life “inside out” and acknowledged that believing she had limited time may have influenced decisions she made during that turbulent period.
She first publicly revealed her hepatitis C diagnosis in 2002.
At the time, Anderson claimed she had contracted the virus after sharing a tattoo needle with Lee during their marriage.
Lee has repeatedly denied that he had hepatitis C.
The former couple married in 1995 and had one of Hollywood’s most famously volatile relationships before divorcing in 1998. Their two sons were still very young when Anderson was dealing with her health fears.
Years later, a breakthrough in hepatitis C treatment finally gave Anderson a way out.
New direct-acting antiviral medications transformed treatment of the disease, and Anderson announced in 2015 that she had been cured.
But she says getting access to the treatment came at an enormous financial cost.
Anderson revealed that paying for the medication drained virtually everything she had in the bank because the treatment was not yet covered by her insurance.
She also admitted feeling guilty knowing that other people battling the same disease did not necessarily have the financial resources or access she did.
Today, hepatitis C treatment looks dramatically different.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says modern antiviral medications can cure more than 95 percent of patients, often after just eight to 12 weeks of oral treatment.
For Anderson, however, the emotional scars from those years did not disappear when the virus did.
She said the experience left her carrying feelings of shame and guilt for years and compared that emotional burden to other traumatic experiences from her past.
Anderson has previously spoken publicly about surviving sexual abuse as a child and said she once viewed herself as “damaged goods.”
Now, she says her perspective has changed.
Rather than seeing herself as someone defined by what happened to her, Anderson said she has finally reached a place where she feels stronger and more in control of her own story.
“I’m not a victim. I’m a victor,” she declared during her Venice speech.
The confession comes during a major career resurgence for Anderson.
After spending years largely associated with her Baywatch image and tabloid fame, she earned critical praise for her dramatic performance in The Last Showgirl and received a Golden Globe nomination.
She has also appeared in the recent Naked Gun reboot and continues taking on new acting projects.