The 46-year-old "Baywatch" alum, former Playboy model and one of the world's most famous sex symbols, talked about her horrific experiences in front of an audience at the launch of her animal rights group The Pamela Anderson Foundation at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival in France on Friday. A transcript of her speech was posted on her official blog.
"I am so happy to finally launch PAF - The Pamela Anderson Foundation - strange reading your own name out loud. Even stranger that I feel now might be the time to reveal some of my most painful memories," she said during her speech, which she read quickly and calmly. "At the risk of over exposing myself again, possibly being inappropriate again, ... I thought I might share with you events that, in surviving, drove me to this point right now."
"I did not have an easy childhood. Despite loving parents, I was molested from age 6-10 by my female babysitter," she said, adding: "I went to a friend's boyfriend's house while she was busy. The boyfriend's older brother decided he would teach me backgammon which led into a back massage which led into rape - my first heterosexual experience. He was 25 yrs old, I was 12."
At the event, which also featured a fundraising backgammon tournament, Anderson also said that when she was in ninth grade, her boyfriend "decided it would be funny to gang rape me (with 6 of his friends)."
"Needless to say, I had a hard time trusting humans," the actress said. "I just wanted off this earth."
Anderson said she didn't want to initially give her mother, who worked two jobs and whose husband, the actress' father, battled alcoholism, more "disruptive information." The actress, now a PETA activist, found comfort with animals, saying she voted to protect them.
"My affinity with animals saved me, they came to me naturally. The trees spoke to me. I wasn't sure why I was alive - a burning question, a quest," she said. "My loyalty remained with the animal kingdom. I vowed to protect them and only them. I prayed to the whales with my feet in the ocean, my only real friends until I had children."
"Thank you for being here - My little family"
In her speech, she also thanked her two sons Brandon and Hunter, whose father is her first husband Tommy Lee, and third husband Rick Salomon, whom she had remarried in January. Their first marriage, which took place in 2007, was annulled after four months.
"I wanted to thank my husband for being my angel," she said. "My biggest donor? The only man (besides my boys) that I trust. (I've always trusted him)."
"I love you Brandon, Hunter," she added. "Thank you for being here my little family. Thank you for being a part of this misfits revolution. I hope to help alleviate some of the suffering in the world."
Salomon and her son Brandon both attended the backgammon tournament, according to the UK newspaper The Guardian.
In fall 2003, Anderson had talked about her past sexual abuse in a piece published in Jane magazine, according to EW, which quoted her saying, "My first experience with sex was non-consensual. The guy ran around afterward in a panic, saying, 'What have I done, what have I done?' Looking back, it was awful. I felt like everyone knew that I had had sex, like it was tattooed on my forehead. That was one thing I never told my mom until a few years ago."
Watch the video below, courtesy of the Associated Press.