Aging Out Loud: What Pamela Anderson is Teaching Us About Aging
- SK Carr
- Jul 31
- 6 min read
Updated: Nov 24
Something’s happening
And I think a lot of us are feeling it. Especially those of us in our 40s, 50s, and above.
Women who have been told for decades what we should look like, how we should show up, and what we must do to stay beautiful, relevant, and desirable.
And then here comes Pamela Anderson.
Moisturizer-only TV interviews.
Barefaced at red carpet events.
And for all of them, she's glowing, joyful, and unapologetically herself.
She's not hiding.
She's not performing.
She's not trying to be anything other than exactly who she is.
Pamela said recently that her whole life, she was playing characters, on screen and even in her personal life...
The Baywatch girl.
The rockstar’s wife.
The sex symbol.
And now, she's just Pamela.
And I'm deeply here for it.
The glow we can’t stop watching
Yes, she’s always been beautiful.
But the thing we can’t get enough of is her radiance.
It’s not the skin.
It's her spirit, ease, and joy.
And it's the lack of performance.
We can see it, and more importantly, we can feel it.
And the word on the street is she and Liam Neeson may have fallen in love during the filming of The Naked Gun, and her beam is now even brighter.
Because they’re both glowing.
Because they both look authentically happy.
And that’s the thing about real beauty: it doesn’t beg for attention. It simply shines.
Joy is the glow
I’ve always been connected to my joy.
Even in seasons when I felt deeply disconnected from my body, my spirit was alive. My smile was real. My joy was consistent.
To me, joy and gratitude are at the heart of our radiance as spirits in a human body experience.
I spent over a decade as a makeup artist for Bobbi Brown, and I used to always say this to women:
“Your smile is nature’s facelift.”
You want to light up your face? Smile.
You want people to not see your age lines? Smile.
You want the world to see you for who you truly are? Smile.
Joy lifts.
Gratitude swells.
And our spirit glows.
And this is what we are all loving about Pamela Anderson right now.
It’s not about makeup or no makeup
Some rare occasional days I wear a full face of makeup. Most days I wear none at all.
But the shift we’re all sensing goes deeper than foundation and lipstick.
It’s about how we feel without the makeup.
It’s about how we relate to the unfiltered version of ourselves.
It’s about being able to look in the mirror and see someone we love, not someone we’re trying to edit, conceal, or perform.
When I was 32, I remember very distinctively looking in the bathroom mirror at myself without any mascara on. Back then, I would not go anywhere or be seen by anybody without mascara on because my eyelashes are very fine and very light, and I felt so bare without them.
But I remember so clearly that day, looking at my bare face and saying, "This is who I am. This is you. This is who you came into this world as, and it’s time to get comfortable with your full bare face."
And it’s so funny, because now I almost feel weird wearing mascara.
Pamela’s beauty isn’t coming from a pop of color or a lash strip.
It’s coming from comfort, congruency, and authenticity.
The pressure to perfect as we age
The truth is, we’ve been fed a thousand messages about how to “fix” ourselves as we get older:
We’re supposed to color our hair.
We’re not supposed to have white roots or white lashes or white anything.
We’re not supposed to have a wrinkle or a line.
We’re not supposed to have thin lips or thin hair or thinning eyebrows.
We’re supposed to get a shot here, a lift there, an injection somewhere else.
And somewhere in all of this pressure, many of us have started to disconnect.
Some of us are deeply connected to our bodies but feel lost in our spirit.
Some of us are deeply connected to our spirit but have long abandoned our bodies.
And some of us feel disconnected from both, floating, performing, coping, surviving.
This is where the real wound lives.
Because beauty without embodiment is hollow, and embodiment without spirit is flat.
The glow comes when the two reunite.
When we live from the inside and let ourselves be seen on the outside.
Aging gracefully ≠ performing worth
Let me be clear:This isn’t about judgment.
If you want Botox, go for it.
If lip filler makes you feel like your best self, book the appointment.
But if you’re doing it out of fear or from the belief that your natural self is somehow “not enough”, I encourage you to pause.
You deserve more than the illusion of confidence.
You deserve the real thing.
There are so many ways to care for ourselves as we age.
Eat well.
Take care of your skin.
Protect your peace.
Reduce your stress and anxiety.
But we don’t have to perform in order to be seen.
We don’t have to contort ourselves into youthful versions of ourselves to be worthy.
Your face does not have to look like a porcelain doll to be radiant.
Your skin does not need to reflect a ring light to be healthy.
Your expressions do not need to be frozen in time to be beautiful.
How can the world feel your spirit if your face can’t even show it?
Beauty isn’t in the illusion.
It’s in the presence.
Pamela Anderson aging gracefully is our permission slip to stop performing
You are never too old, or too young, to become the woman you want to be. To pivot. To start over. To reinvent. To live more honestly than you ever have before.
Pamela is 58 years old and she’s doing things her way now. She’s not too late to be radiant. She’s not too old to begin again. And neither are you.
Women like Pamela are giving us permission to stop hiding. Not that we ever needed permission, but how refreshing is it to see someone who isn’t trying to erase her imperfections or disguise her age?
In a world that constantly tells women they aren’t allowed to age, and that once we do, we will become irrelevant, Pamela is standing in the spotlight and saying: that’s simply not true.
She’s showing us that aging doesn’t make you invisible.
It makes you radiant.
It makes you unique.
It makes you powerful.
And it makes you real.
My mom was the exact same way. Even until she died at 75, strangers, men and women alike, would stop her in public to tell her how beautiful she was. Even when she was riddled with cancer and had lost so much weight, her spirit glowed and her presence shined. She was radiant because she was herself.
And sadly, that’s what sets women like Pamela and my mom apart from others. In a world slicked with Botox, retinol, and so many frozen expressions, being older, natural, and beautiful has actually become a rare thing.
A few questions to sit with
Let this land as you think about Pamela Anderson aging.
Not as another thing to fix…But as an invitation to remember what’s already within you.
What stories have I internalized about aging, beauty, and visibility?
Am I performing any part of myself in order to feel safe, seen, or worthy?
What does radiance feel like in my body—not just my appearance?
Who modeled unfiltered beauty for me growing up? What did I learn from them?
What would it feel like to stop hiding?
You don’t need to answer them all right now.
But let yourself sit with them over time.
Get curious. Be honest.
And ask yourself:
What really matters to me in this life?
How do I want to live, and how do I hope to be remembered?
I’d love to hear how this lands for you. Drop a comment and let’s keep the conversation going.
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Photo of Pamela Anderson is by Norman Wong, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY 4.0
I resonate completely with this article. I am now 70 years old and the days of putting on full face make up does not happen anymore. I have curly silver hair and most of the time I do put a little under eye stuff on tinted moisturizer and a little lipsticks sometimes. I've heard other women saying that they feel invisible as they age, I don't feel that. I say hello to everybody. I come in contact with a smile. You have to let that light out so other people have permission to let their light out. Thanks for this!💖