Pamela Anderson Says Going Through Old Journals to Write Memoir “Love, Pamela” 'Was Painful to Me'

“I didn’t plan on this whole healing experience, but as the days went on, it’s what happened,” Anderson recalled to 'Better Homes & Gardens'

To pen her memoir, Pamela Anderson had to endure a “painful” blast from the past — in her own words.

While appearing on the cover of Better Homes & Gardens’ Stylemaker Issue, the actress, 57, recalled the “painful” yet “healing” process of poring over her old writing to write her memoir Love, Pamela — and its sister documentary, Pamela, a love story — which came out in January 2023.

The process began after she moved back to the small Canadian town where she spent much of her childhood with sons Brandon Thomas, 27, and Dylan Jagger, 26, whom she shares with ex-husband Tommy Lee.

“It took me a couple years of transitioning and thinking. I was finally able to sit with myself,” Anderson recalled, of moving to the town in Vancouver Island, British Columbia. “There was nothing else to do but write a lot. I wrote my memoir on that property.”

Related: Pamela Anderson on Finally Telling Her 'Whole Story' in Her Own Words: 'It's Been a Healing Process'

“Brandon was with me co-producing the Netflix documentary and helping me put the pieces of my former life together,” she continued. “We were going through all my journals, which were in storage. That was painful to me.”

Though agonizing, the experience also helped Anderson in a way she did not anticipate.

“I didn’t plan on this whole healing experience, but as the days went on, it’s what happened,” she told Better Homes & Gardens. “It was like I went back home to ‘face it and erase it,’ as they say, to face things from back then that weren’t very comfortable. That brought everything rushing back.”

"I slowly started working through it while putting all my heart and soul into my garden,” she added.

Related: Pamela Anderson's New Memoir: Biggest Bombshells and Revelations, from Jack Nicholson to JFK Jr.

Elsewhere in the interview, Anderson revealed that writing down her feelings is still a critical part of her routine today.

“I get up at 4 or 5 every day — that’s my time. I like to write with the sunrise,” she continued. “It’s very peaceful, and I’m always baking bread then. So I keep baker’s hours.”

Related: Pamela Anderson Says She Gained 25 Lbs. While Writing Her Memoir: 'My Puffy Suit of Armor'

The Baywatch star said that, just like her memoir and documentary, her kids are at the center of it her new cookbook, I Love You, forthcoming this October.

“The cookbook started out as a housewarming gift for my sons,” she recalled to Better Homes & Gardens. “I remember my mom used to have these recipe cards in a box. I decided I had to find the ultimate recipe card box. I found one and started printing out these cards of all our family recipes — but I made them plant-based.”

The recipe book brimming with the star’s “comfort foods” — family recipes like “cabbage rolls and soups and pickled things” — was originally just for her boys, “who had just bought a house together, and their girlfriends, all four of them,” she said.

"Of course, my son Brandon, being the businessman, said, ‘This is a book, Mom.’ And so we did it,” she continued. “And titled the book I Love You since that was engraved on the recipe box.”

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Better Homes & Gardens’ Stylemaker Issue hits newsstands on Aug. 23. Anderson’s cookbook, I Love You, comes out Oct. 15 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.

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