With the big screen reboot of the cult TV series Baywatch currently in production, stories and secrets are coming out about the original series, which starred David “America’s Gift to Germany” Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson. In a recent Hollywood Reporter article, we learned that Leonardo DiCaprio was originally cast to play the Hoff’s son and that the Pam Anderson/Tommy Lee sex tape boosted the show’s ratings…duh.
In addition to these revelations came the stories regarding actress Nicole Eggert’s boob job. The Baywatch babe, who spent two seasons on the show from 1992-1994, underwent surgery in the middle of production possibly because, as show producer Michael Berk told THR, she felt competitive with star Pam:
“She felt a little bit competitive with Pam. She had a beautiful athletic body but didn’t have big boobs at all. Maybe she was feeling a little bit of pressure. There was a holiday weekend and for a couple of days she called in sick afterward. Then she showed up back on the set having gotten a boob job.”
“I had already shot scenes with her with small breasts. She came in and was wearing a jacket. I said, ‘Nicole, you can’t wear that. We already shot part of that scene before and you don’t have a jacket on, remember?’ She wanted to wear that jacket and I couldn’t figure out why. And then finally, when she took off the jacket, she had these giant double Ds. I didn’t know what to do. I had to put things in front of her and hide her for the rest of the episode.”
After appearing on VH1’s Celebrity Fit Club in 2010 and the celebrity diving competition Splash in 2013, Nicole started a new career selling ice cream – and even bought her own truck. That’s quite a change from playing a sexy lifeguard, isn’t it? Please tell me the truck plays the theme from Baywatch, instead of that carnival music they usually play. Back in April of 2015, the 44-year-old actress appeared on an episode of the E! series Botched. She had already had five boob jobs before going on the show to get her breast size reduced, citing weight loss struggles as the reason she wanted to get her boobs down to a more reasonable size. When asked by the show’s Dr. Paul Nassif about her fears, she replied, ”It’s something I definitely want done if it’s done right, but I’ve had such bad luck that I’m scared to death to make it worse.”
I would think any actress on a show where you’re pretty much in a bathing suit the entire time would feel some competition from a Playboy model. Baywatch director Douglas Schwartz said of Anderson, “She had these enormous breasts. David thought he would be upstaged by everyone looking at her breasts. Which is what happened.” I do feel bad that Nicole felt pressured to do it, but I completely understand. It sucks, but I get it.
Photo credit: Getty Images, Fame Flynet, Pacific Coast News
I remember seeing her on botched! She was going on and on about how she wanted to fit into her old clothes and only her boobs were getting in the way, when really she’d gained a not insignificant amount of weight since those days. She still looked great but like.. Her whole body, not her boobs, was why she couldn’t fit into her old stuff. It was funny to watch the surgeons try to delicately break that to her.
She was also on an episode of What Not to Wear because she was ” a single mom struggling with her weight and taking little time for herself.”
She was also on Oprah’s “where are they now” she talked about the media comparing her young body to the current one.
I will never understand why that Playboy bunny type of beauty was so popular. Being extremely skinny with huge boobs never looks good. Or yellow blonde hair. Pamela had a pretty face, that’s why she was beautiful, not because of the doubl Ds.
It wasn’t so much the skinny body as the big boobs. Never underestimate the prurient interest of men in big boobs.
A family audience being given permission to gawk at big boobs running across a screen, in a ‘wholesome’ show on prime-time without censure went a long way to promoting that type.
There is a scene in the early episodes of ‘Friends’ where Joey and Chandler are mesmirised by the slo-mo running of the baywatch babes on a beach. The scene makes it very clear it’s the boobs holding their attention.
One of the most successful playboy models of that era, Anna Nicole Smith, was quite a big girl in terms of size, but even she had surgery to get the giant boobs.
If anything, i’d say it was the era of big boobs. (unashamed) Breast implant surgery really took off because of it.
I think not many men would remember her face but only her bouncy run on the beach.
I’ll be honest — I never got the big whoop about her face. I suspect she may be naturally pretty, but her styling struck me as kind of uggo.
Pammy had a great face, she was also very sexy. Nicole wasn’t sexy even with bigger boobs.
I can’t explain the sexiness vibe, some have it some don’t.
I had a friend that I used to go out to the clubs with and she wasn’t the best looking girl, didn’t have the best clothes but there was a sexiness about her that men flocked to. Even one of my friend who was gorgeous, fit and 10 years younger would get so perplexed.. guys would pass her by but my sexy friend? She could just look at a guy and he was mush… she was just sexy and I can’t explain it.
Pam had that but she was also hot with a great body, even without her implants. And when she was dressed down with no makeup, she still looked sexy yet so pretty. Guys just adored her..I remember her being on all the tabloids and magazines like Kim K is today.
I used to want her round high boobs forever when I was younger, and then finally got my boobs done and I HATED them.. too high, too big, too round. I had them done 3 times with different sizes, and profiles and finally decided nope not for me.
Now as I got older my boobs have grown ( hormones? peri?) and they look great but I am uncomfortable with them being large. Luckily I got a lift after all my surgeries so are not saggy. But I am seriously considering a reduction!
I’m going under the knife for a reduction in two weeks. I’m not looking forward to the pain of recovery but I am looking forward to not having to haul around two enormous mounds of flesh from my shoulders. A lifetime of desk work and huge breasts has given me a nasty case of a severe degenerative disk disease in my neck.
I had a reduction 15 years ago. Best thing I ever did!
Pamela was so pretty but she had painted on eyebroiws and lip linered lips that were straight out of a 70s Chola Makeup Playbook which always cracked me up.
I remember an infomercial from like 10 years ago that was for a makeup kit from Pamela Anderson’s makeup artist and the makeup was terrible looking. It was like this awful frosty pink lipstick with a really smoky eye. I first saw it and I was like,”Who would wear this?!” and then Pamela Anderson showed up on screen and I was like, “Ohhh, that’s who.” Paula Abdul was also in the infomercial.
But she was very pretty, still is, I would say.
I thought Nicole Eggert was gorgeous in that “Esprit ad campaign” from the 1980’s kind of way: healthy, makeup free, confident, natural… I certainly thought she held her own against Pam Anderson. Hollywood can really do a psychological number on women who bring a unique beauty to the table– what’s the use of pursuing diversity if you’re going to morph into the Barbie standard anyway? (*side-eye at Olivia Munn)
Charles in Charge REPRESENT!
Yess!! I wanted to be her when I would watch on her Charles in Charge. She was the epitome of the cool, beautiful, popular perfect girl. I never did watch Baywatch, just caught glimpses here and there and when I saw she was on it back then it was neat to see her again.
Yup. I wanted to be just like her for the same reasons, Benchwarmer. I saw her in a movie shortly after Charles in Charge and nothing since – until today. I’m shocked because back then she was one of the last people that I would ever have guessed felt the least bit insecure. Sounds like taking the Baywatch part was her downfall. Sigh.
I seem to recall that Nicole was very competitive with Pamela, but in a competition where she was the only participant. I don’t know if that was the media pitting her against Pamela, but she always came across that way. And i always thought Pamela didn’t notice at all ie she was busy doing her thing and so Nicole just came across as desparate in trying to emulate Pamela.
I never understood why women want big boobs. Yes the male attention is nice but if i’m honest, when i gained some weight, i hated my bigger boobs.
Uncomfortable when you run, sweaty when it’s hot, in the way when you wear a shirt and they made me look fatter and thicker that i actually was.
small boobs for the win, especially if you are born with them.
True. When I lost some weight my boobs got a bit smaller and that’s so awesome! Running is much more fun. Also, the tenderness before getting my period is gone. When they were bigger those knockers have been hurting for up to 10 days. Now I’m painfree the whole month.
Me neither. I had boobs from a young age and genetics + weight gain gave me a huge boobs by the end of puberty. Despite losing weight, my boobs remained and only surgery could help me. I so wanted a C cup but for some reason they were a D after surgery. They are the single most annoying feature of my body: clothes fit differently (makes me look heavier or fall awkward), intense sports is a pain sometimes, my boobs bounce so I never bother wearing clothes that accentuate this when I work out outside, bras are more expensive as I found a really good brand which supports and also doesn’t wear out after 3 months (Marlies Dekkers)…
This obsession with bigger boobs being sexy and desirable whereas small or no boobs are boyish is stupid and I side-eye people when people claim it’s a woman’s agency when they go big (or too big for their frame) like women aren’t in the least influenced by the perpetuated male gaze? Here you can read comments too about women’s frames and it’s usually curves, a stereotypical ‘feminine’ bodyshape that still wins so it’s clear that it at least is a factor when women alter their bodies.
Plus, big boobs are hardly the only path to male attention. Being young pretty much does it. Throw in pretty and blonde like Eggert, maybe add in some tight jeans, she probably attracted crowds of men any time she left the house pre-boob job. But I suspect the show pressured her into it.
Plenty of men don’t even like big breasts, or blondes for that matter. I think it’s more like how I’ll find myself staring if I see I really muscular guy in a tank top or shirtless, even though I don’t find it attractive at all.
Oh, absolutely. I just meant in Hollywood terms if one wanted to attract hordes of admirers…I think Eggert fit the criteria even without a boob job. But I never really watched the show, myself, and didn’t consider any of them a beauty ideal.
If she wanted to beat Pamela at something, she could have tried learning how to act.
not to be a smartass, but david hasselhoff was germany’s gift to america, not the other way around. and about the boobs, reading stories like that make me almost physically feel the pain. these poor women being so wrapped up in the male gaze, they pay to be cut open, inserted with basically bags of rubber and sewn back together again. ouch. so sad.
David Hasselhoff is American.
omg you’re right! i spend my life thinking he’s german!
Yes, he’s American and still thinks he caused the fall of the Berlin Wall.
I remember her from Charles in charge. She just looked better w a smaller chest when younger, I though the DD boob job looked off w her body.
I feel like I heard this story years ago. Like when Baywatch was on.
I never watched the show but Pam was eeeeeverywhere back then. You couldn’t escape her, it was her “time”. Her face was beautiful but if anything, her look made me want to look NOTHING like her.
Reading all of this just gives me bad flashbacks to growing up in the 90’s and feeling so ugly all the time because I was a curvy Italian girl who looked nothing like the “ideal” of the time which was basically Pamela Anderson and Britney Spears. I was talking about this phenom of the obsession in the 80’s and 90’s with the “All American big boobed blonde” with a friend of mine recently. I have a large chest and always have but….I just remember feeling like there was literally NO ONE on television that looked like me. I have olive skin and a curvy body and a prominent Sicilian nose and bushy dark eyebrows and black hair. I just remember wishing so hard that I could look more like girls like Britney Spears and have that blonde hair and “all American” face. And then you grow up and realize that you are fighting to be something that you just aren’t. I feel like when Jennifer Lopez rose to prominence things started to slowly shift but it was a long haul. Today, I look at the younger girls and I ::think:: that maybe things have changed in terms of standards of beauty? But then I look at Margot Robbie and Jennifer Lawrence as the two hot young celebs that everyone is obsessed with and who get called the biggest stars and I realize…..the more things change the more things stay the same. I can’t even imagine how women of color must have felt growing up in that era. I cannot even fathom it. Because even me, as an ethnic looking white girl, felt hideously unable to measure up all the time to what was deemed “hot” back then. I’m in my 30’s now and, generally, I feel more secure with who I am now. But man….that 90’s obsession with this kind of look was rough to grow up with.
As someome who grew up in the 80s and 90s, we had plenty of black role models. Much more so than you do now. Go figure.
There were lots of non white superstars in the entertainment industry for someone like Pam not to cause mass low self-esteem in non white communities eg Halle Berry or Janet Jackson or Iman or Naomi Campbell or Sade or Whitney or Mariah.
TV shows like The Cosby show,Fame, In-Living colour were a parade of beautiful people to obsess about – too bad that Bill Cosby turned out to be such a horror.
JLo started her career on In-Living colour as part of the inhouse dance troop called the flygirls. The fly girls had a very big following and JLo stood out for being the only white girl in the troop, but not in a horrible way. Just a fact.
Many of the non white superstars still prominent today became famous in the 80s and 90s. Even those that only rose to B-list like Cuba Gooding Junior or Nia Long.
At some point in the early 00s, there was a white out meaning non white representation started to regress. In the same way that female roles in films have regressed to fewer % every year since. There are stats proving this.
As a society we are more tolerant with each successive year, but as far as representation is concerned, we’ve definitely gone backwards.
I remember a pretty girl at school having a bit of a rounder butt and she never tried to hide it. she was petite everywhere else and I felt sorry for her. She was popular and it didn’t’ seem to bother her, but when J Lo came into prominence It finally dawned on me that skinny was a trend. You don’t think that as a self centered teen. What is currently in style and you’re not like what is currently in style can affect you growing up.
“Skinny was a trend.” Great way of saying that!
Mary, reading your comments took me back to high school in the early 90’s. And yes, that is exactly how it felt if you weren’t tan, big-boobed, and blonde. I am a redhead with freckles and fair skin, and I always felt like I was not the ideal.
I never watched Baywatch but I was aware of its significance and popularity. When I was younger though I did watch Charles in Charge and thought Nicole was so pretty! It was sad to see her recently on Botched, she really just needed a reduction and to get on a good workout/nutrition plan.
I was paying attention to Shirley Manson and Gwen Stefani during the 90s… I purposefully shunned anything that was mainstream, but I absolutely get what you are talking about when it comes to the big boobed American Barbie ideal bc that is the dominant measuring stick for what is considered attractive still in men’s media (*side eye at Hugh Hefner).
What affected me most, crazily enough, was Kevyn Aucoin’s position on eyebrows…I plucked and arched those things so thin bc that was the look…and in 2016 , they’re still recovering!
Re: Eyebrows
The 90’s were so mean to eyebrows. I luckily kept my relatively full brows but I have friends that weren’t so lucky. In fact I have friends now, in their mid-late 30’s that still pluck the S**t outta their brows and arch them something awful. LOL, they look permanently surprised!
The ladies from En Vogue and myriad early 90s girl groups. I especially loved TLC.
Oh I loved En Vogue, TLC and SVW. TLC was one group I reall connected with. I felt so awful when Lisa “Left-Eye” Lopes died.
The beauty term “All American” just really grinds my gears. So thank you for putting it in quotes.
I like Nicole on Charles in Charge and thought she had a super cute all-American fresh girl look. I didn’t watch Bay Watch, so I have no opinion on it. Later years, I saw Nicole on that VHI reality show with Kevin Federline and Bobby Brown – overweight/out of shape celebrities (has beens) supposedly on the show to lose weight. Nicole consistently did not follow the program and lose weight as she refused to stop drinking wine. She literally slipped away and hid to sneak and drink glasses of wine every single day. She obviously had a drinking problem. I’ve wondered if she ever got THAT taken care of. Multiple glasses of wine daily = mucho calories. That was probably her weight problem to begin with.
…there was another girl…alexandra paul…a fairly decent actress..the moment she was cast I just felt enormous sympathy for her…
You know Alexandra Paul is the love interest in the 70’s flick Stephen King’s “Christine?” Yep. True.
Such a shame Nicole was pretty but anyone would feel flat chested next to Pammy. I was more a Shirley Manson and Gwen Stefani fan myself.
So I just want to let everyone in a secret, if you are 5’9 and have pretty much as cup sizes double a’s, implants are pretty great. I felt I had to be very skinny to match my breasts. When I gained weight, even 2 or 3 pounds that weight went to my butt and hips and I was very out of proportion. Getting my breast implants was a very freeing experience. I can wear clothes I think are more flattering and feel a lot better about my body. And I can gain a few pounds and not feel like a freak. Please don’t shame plastic surgery, breast implants aren’t always for the male eye.