Pamela Anderson and Jon Peters rang in 2020 with a secret wedding in Malibu.
It was just months after the on-and-off couple reignited their spark, which apparently didn't
burn for very long…because they called it quits just 12 days later.
So why did the couple split up?
Pamela Anderson and Jon Peters' uncoupling probably won't be too messy.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the actress and Hollywood producer never even filed legal
documents.
This seems to be a trend for Anderson, who married, but never really married, Kid Rock
in the early aughts.
Let us explain.
As People reports, Anderson and Kid Rock started dating in 2001, got engaged in 2002, and split
up in 2003.
In 2006, they crossed paths in Saint-Tropez and decided to get engaged again.
They wed later that month, and had big plans to legally tie the knot.
As Anderson said during a press conference:
"I'm going to get married a few times this month to the same guy.
We had to do Malibu, we've got to do Detroit, and we've got to do Nashville."
Of course, none of these glamorous destination weddings ever actually happened.
The pair broke up later that year.
As you can see, Anderson's relationship with Peters followed a somewhat similar trajectory:
Peters was Anderson's ex, and then they reconnected, got married, and almost immediately pulled
the plug.
So it's hard to see the sudden breakup as a total surprise...even if we expected the
union to last longer than 12 days.
"They didn't even give it two weeks."
As Anderson told The Hollywood Reporter,
"We would be very grateful for your support as we take some time apart to reevaluate what
we want from life and from one another.
Life is a journey and love is a process.
With that universal truth in mind, we have mutually decided to put off the formalization
of our marriage certificate and put our faith in the process.
Thank you for respecting our privacy."
You know what they say: An ex is an ex for a reason.
Though time can make you forget why you broke up with someone, that reason usually resurfaces
at one point or another.
Perhaps that's what happened between Pamela Anderson and Jon Peters.
According to TMZ, they originally dated over 30 years ago before going their separate ways.
The Hollywood Reporter claims Peters even covered the costs for Anderson's acting classes,
which ultimately led to her landing her first TV role on Home Improvement.
When he reportedly proposed to her back then, the answer was no.
"Don't call me babe."
It's hard to say why the couple split up the first time around, but in a statement to The
Hollywood Reporter, in the form of a love poem, no less, the Barb Wire actress wrote,
"Jon is the original 'bad boy' of Hollywood / no one compares - / I love him deeply like
family.
His life used to scare me...Now I've seen more of life / and realize / He's been there
all along."
Well, perhaps his life did still scare her to some extent.
The couple has more than two decades between them, and it sounds like that age difference
played a part in their initial breakup.
Peters revealed to The Hollywood Reporter what he said to Anderson when she rejected
him the first time:
"In 30 years, our age difference won't mean so much."
Who knows?
Maybe their age difference was a factor this time around, too.
Judging by the timeline, it seems like Anderson may have been rebounding with Jon Peters.
Hear us out on this one: As TMZ reports, the actress reconnected with her former flame
after splitting from French soccer star Adil Rami in 2018.
Sources told the tabloid,
"[Rami] gave her a Cartier ring...as a precursor to a proposal...and recently talked about
popping the question, but Pam said no."
Pamela Anderson may have never gotten her big break on Baywatch if she didn't make a
name for herself as a Playboy model first.
Today, she's one of the most famous cover girls in the magazine's history.
According to USA Today, Anderson posed for her first cover in 1989 and graced a record-setting
number of covers throughout her sprawling career.
Clearly, appearing in the magazine was an important stepping stone for the actress.
"You still hold the record for the most number of Playboy-"
"... covers?
That's a feat."
"Fourteen times."
"Big accomplishment."
But it doesn't seem like Jon Peters ever really respected that aspect of her career.
In a 2017 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he recalled meeting Anderson at the Playboy
mansion when she was 19 years old.
In their first few moments together, he apparently tried to dissuade her from posing in the magazine.
As he explained it,
"Pamela was a girl who with no makeup was gorgeous.
She was very smart and very talented.
I tried to talk her out of doing Playboy.
I said, 'Don’t do Playboy.
Focus on a serious career.'
She said, 'You’re nuts.'
She wanted to do Playboy, and she went on to do 13 covers."
We're only speculating here, but it seems like it'd be rather hard to stay with someone
who didn't respect one of the most important touchstones of your career.
After a few weeks of that, we'd be like:
"Here is to living alone.
No one to criticize you, antagonize you..."
In fact, it really sounds like Jon Peters doesn't have a great deal of respect for Pamela
Anderson's career thus far.
"We need to harness our energy for the good of mankind."
"It don't get no gooder than this!
Hahaha!"
In a 2020 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the movie mogul claimed,
"Pamela has never seen her full potential as an artist.
She has yet to shine in a real way.
There is much more to her than meets the eye, or I wouldn't love her so much."
A public marriage announcement is an awfully strange time to start busting out the backhanded
compliments, isn't it?
Especially considering everything Anderson has accomplished.
In 2014, she launched her own charity, The Pamela Anderson Foundation, which supports
the protection of human, animal, and environmental rights.
She's also racked up a whopping 52 IMDb credits as an actress, and more than a few as an executive
producer.
If that's not shining "in a real way," we don't know what is.
Trauma can tighten a bond...or it can tear it apart.
Jon Peters was reportedly there for Pamela Anderson during the roughest part of her relationship
with Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee.
According to E! News, Anderson only knew Lee for four days before they tied the knot in
Mexico and their relationship reportedly became abusive even before she had their second child.
As Rolling Stone reports,
"Tommy Lee was charged with felony spousal abuse, and, after pleading no contest, he
was sentenced to six months in jail on May 20th, 1998."
Well, Peters claims that this wasn't an isolated incident.
In fact, he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2017,
"She raised two kids on her own.
She was beat up all the time by that guy Tommy-whatever-his-name-was.
I picked her up many times from her lawyer's office and flew her up with her kids and hid
her out in Aspen for a month because the guy was beating her up.
She made it through.
She raised the kids."
After all that, it wouldn't be surprising if Anderson just wanted to leave the past
in the past.
Pamela Anderson seems to have a thing for intense, whirlwind relationships.
Although it goes without saying, most people don't tie the knot four days after meeting
someone.
It seems like Jon Peters thrives on a similar kind of romantic intensity…but that kind
of dynamic doesn't tend to make for the healthiest relationships.
This is evident in his longtime romance with Barbra Streisand, a relationship that lasted
for more than 12 years.
"What did I do wrong?
What did I do?
Did I care for you too much?
Did I love you too much?"
As People reports,
"[The relationship was] passionate, sometimes violent.
Jon says Barbra once hit him with a chair, and sometimes when he was furious, he grabbed
her and shook her hard."
One of Peters' former colleagues told the magazine,
"They fought like tigers.
Most of the time they lived on an adrenaline high.”
Meanwhile, Streisand revealed,
"We were butting horns because I was passionately involved in Yentl, and neglecting him.
We had also been too dependent on each other.
And you come to resent dependency."
Nevertheless, they managed to maintain a friendship following their 1985 split.
When you really stop to think about it, Peters' relationship with Streisand doesn't sound
all that different from some of Anderson's past relationships.
Unfortunately, things that burn brightly often burn quickly.
Actually, something doesn't quite add up here, unless you can have more than one "love of
your life."
After his secret wedding to Pamela Anderson, Jon Peters told The Hollywood Reporter,
"There are beautiful girls everywhere.
I could have my pick, but, for 35 years, I've only wanted Pamela.
She makes me wild, in a good way.
She inspires me.
I protect her and treat her the way she deserves to be treated."
Well, that seems to contradict a statement he made back in 2017.
While discussing his past relationship with Barbra Streisand, he told The Hollywood Reporter:
"She was probably the love of my life.
Yeah.
She was the most captivating, interesting, creative person I have ever met.
I owe her.
I will always owe her for giving me the life that I've had."
Hmmm…so what changed?
It seems like Anderson wasn't the one for Peters, after all.
US Weekly reports that Peters was the one who terminated the relationship.
Then again, who knows?
Maybe the third time's the charm for this on-again, off-again couple.
There's hardly been a moment in the last three decades when Pamela Anderson wasn't in the
press, between her Playboy covers, whirlwind marriages, and bizarre involvement in Julian
Assange's political drama.
Even when Anderson was living low-key in France, she still appeared on her son's reality show,
The Hills: New Beginnings.
Meanwhile, Jon Peters clearly doesn't have the same kind of relationship to the press.
According to a 2017 profile in The Hollywood Reporter,
"[He spent a decade living] mostly on a 3,000-acre ranch in Santa Barbara, in self-imposed exile."
As he told the publication,
"Everybody's reclusive when you make a certain amount of money.
Especially if you've had a tough life, you try to fortify yourself with your friends
and kind of keep the world out."
But of course, wealthy Hollywood celebrities aren't all reclusive, obviously.
Though it goes without saying, Anderson isn't shy at all, and she certainly loves getting
press.
"I'm not good at keeping secrets.
At all."
At the time of the pair's wedding, Anderson was 52 years old and Peters was 74 years old…and
it's worth noting that Peters has admitted to having a penchant for younger women.
In a 2017 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he admitted,
"I used to date all young girls, and then it was like, 'I could be your grandfather.
What am I doing?"
Perhaps the producer has turned over a new leaf…but old habits are hard to kick.
Then again, he's obviously settled down with women closer to his age in the past, despite
what he decided to tell The Hollywood Reporter.
We're purely speculating here, but could his admitted taste for young women have caused
some romantic trouble for the ex-couple?
Pamela Anderson isn't the only part of Jon Peters' past to resurface in recent years.
The producer's various sexual assault and harassment allegations made headlines again
in the wake of the third A Star Is Born remake. Peters produced the second remake in 1976,
which featured Barbra Streisand.
He also had a highly controversial credit in Bradley Cooper's directorial debut.
According to a detailed report by Jezebel,
"[Peters] has been sued for...harassment at least five times."
In fact, he was sued by a former personal assistant in 2006 for various instances of
alleged harassment.
As The Washington Post reports,
"According to the lawsuit, Peters frequently grabbed [her] breasts, buttocks or legs, hugged
and kissed her and made 'rude...and disparaging comments.'"
He also allegedly exposed himself to her and her daughter; crawling into her bed and refusing
to leave.
Reuters reports that he was found guilty in 2011 and forced to pay his accuser more than
$3 million.
Anderson has never spoken publicly about Peters' allegations, but considering that she's a
survivor of domestic violence herself, this seems like it could've created a rift between
them.
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