At the amfAR 2026 Gala, an organization dedicated to battling HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C, actress and activist Pamela Anderson spoke during an emotional address at the event in Venice, Italy, where she recalled the difficult period she experienced after being diagnosed with hepatitis C in the late 1990s when there was still no known cure for the disease.
Anderson, 59, admitted to the visitors, according to Variety:
My doctor informed me that I possibly have about ten years to live. ”
The actress from" Baywatch" admitted that the news affected her later decisions and that her biggest worry was not the death of her two sons, Dylan Jagger ( 28 ), who were the children of her marriage to drummer Tommy Lee.
Anderson had already revealed in the past that she contracted the virus by sharing a tattoo needle with her then husband, with whom she was married between 1995 and 1998. Fortunately, in 2011 drugs were approved to cure hepatitis C, and in 2015 the actress was free of the disease.
However, the treatment had a high cost: “It cost me all I had saved,” he confessed.
Despite her recovery, Anderson assured that the experience left emotional sequences. “My experience of shame and guilt was also an unconscious journey that stays with me and torments me. And like the sexual abuse I suffered as a child, I felt like it was engraved on my forehead: damaged goods,” he explained.
In her speech, the actress made it clear that she is not considered a victim: “I’m a winner. I’m strong and capable, more than I’d ever imagined.
During the charity event, organized to raise funds for AIDS research, Anderson was awarded the Valor Award. The actress, who also starred in “Naked Gun,” shared her diagnosis for the first time in 2002 and, before healing, declared to People in 2015 that she had no symptoms and was leading a normal life.
