Amateur Hour
New York magazine|July 5-18, 2021
A quarter-century after Pam and Tommy’s sex tape, there have been countless copycats—and nothing like it.
By Lux Alptraum
Amateur Hour

In October 1995, a 500-pound safe was stolen from the garage of a Malibu mansion. Inside, the thief (or thieves) found guns, jewelry, and a piece of treasure far more valuable than they could have imagined: a private video made by the newlyweds Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee.

Most of the nearly hour-long Hi8 cassette was mundane. Anderson, then the star of Baywatch, gets a tattoo; Lee, the drummer for Mötley Crüe, gets his nails done. There’s blurry, almost inaudible footage of their wedding. They play with their dogs and talk about the tomatoes growing in their driveway. But there’s also six minutes of fucking. While Lee is driving, Anderson gives him a blow job, and on a yacht, they screw each other rather frantically, declaring their love for one another in an orgasmic frenzy.

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