A doctor told Pamela Anderson she probably had 10 years left to live…
A doctor told Pamela Anderson she probably had 10 years left to live. She was in her 30s, with two young sons.
For decades, the Baywatch icon was one of the most famous faces on the planet. But behind the glamour, Pamela was carrying a diagnosis she says turned her entire life inside out.
She was diagnosed with hepatitis C in the late 1990s, at a time when there was no cure. And while the thought of dying was frightening, she says it wasn’t the fear of death that haunted her most. It was the fear of what would happen to her young children if she wasn’t there. 
Now, in a raw and emotional speech at the amfAR Gala in Venice, where she was honored with the Award of Courage, Pamela has opened up about what those years did to her.
She admitted that the diagnosis shaped, and even clouded, many of her decisions. Then came the turning point. A cure was finally discovered in 2011, and by 2015 she was hep C free. But it didn’t come easily. She revealed the treatment cost her everything she had in the bank, because insurance didn’t cover it yet, and she’s still haunted by guilt that others couldn’t get the same chance.
Even now, she says, the shame and guilt stay with her.
But Pamela refuses to be defined by it. Through her work and her art, she’s found her strength again, and she ended her speech with a message that brought the room to its feet: “I’m not a victim,
