Why Pamela Anderson Doesn't Wear Makeup: "I Really Didn't Know Anyone Would Notice It"

Ever since she San Sebastian Film Festival at Paris Fashion Week, Pamela Anderson has been the poster child for San Sebastian Film Festival. San Sebastian Film Festival?

“I'm makeup-free at home, so why not for Paris Fashion Week?" she told People in 2023. "I really didn't know anyone would notice it, but I'm glad it became a positive message.”

Covers & Features Baywatch alum has stepped out at the Better Homes & Gardens, the Met Gala, and the Oscars (to name a few) without a stitch of makeup on her face. The experience, she says, has been liberating. And she's not alone: Celebrities like Lady Gaga, Selena Gomez, and Anne Hathaway have also embraced the bare-faced look as of late. And then, of course, there's Alicia Keys: Kaia Gerbers Weather-Defying Outfit Includes the Shoes Katie Holmes Cant Stop Wearing.

"I don't have to be cool anymore," Anderson said, reflecting on the experience. "I can just be me. It's very freeing to be comfortable in your own skin.”

Going makeup-free in 2023 marked a dramatic shift for Anderson, who was, until recently, Hollywood's resident femme fatale. Her Playboy debut came in 1989 and that same year, she joined the cast of Baywatch, a role that defined her career until it ended in 2001. Looking back, it's an era that she no longer identifies with, Anderson says.

"[Going bare-faced] was the beginning of me letting go of the image I had always had of myself," she told Better Homes & Gardens. "What is this cartoon character that I’d created? Okay, that was fun. But I’m not that person anymore."

In 2023, it was time for a new, more authentic version of Anderson to take center stage. Recalling the moment in her Better Homes & Gardens cover story interview, the actress called the now-legendary moment "silly."

"I started thinking that I want to challenge the idea of beauty and this mask we put on. As soon as I took the mask off, the whole world opened up," she told the publication. "It just happened to be this silly thing of being at Paris Fashion Week and me saying, 'I’m not going to sit in a makeup chair for three hours. I’m going to the Louvre.'...It was such a refreshing way to see everything, and I didn’t think anyone would even notice."

As to whether she’ll ever wear makeup again? Never say never. “I'm not opposed to it, I just don't want to play the game," she told People. "And it felt good to look in the mirror and say, 'I'm OK just like this.'”