TBT: Tommy Lee Licked Pamela Anderson's Face the Night They Met

Who: Actress, model, and activist Pamela Anderson, 55, and musician and former member of Motley Crüe Tommy Lee, 60. 

How They Met: Anderson and Lee met on New Year’s Eve in 1994 at Sanctuary, a nightclub in Hollywood, in which the Baywatch star was an investor. And Pamela was the one to make the first move. 

"Suddenly, a waitress came over and said, 'Tommy, here's a shot of Goldschläger. It's for you, from Pamela Anderson,'" the drummer wrote in his autobiography The Dirt. He continued, “She was wearing all white, her hair was the most perfect shade of blond I had ever seen, her teeth practically glowed through her lips when she laughed, and she stood out so radiantly from everyone around her that it seemed like a beam of black light was shining on her from above.”

Clearly interested, Tommy walked over to Pamela’s table, introduced himself, and sat right next to her before proceeding to lick her face. "Then I grabbed her face and licked the side of it, from chin to temple. She fucking laughed and, without missing a beat, turned away and licked the face of the girl next to her. Everyone started passing licks around the table." The night ended, and Lee walked Anderson to her car and got her phone number. 

The two talked for six weeks before finally going on their first date at Señor Frogs in Cancun. Anderson was in Mexico for work and warned Lee not to come, but he did anyway. "He found out I was at a photo shoot down there, and he followed me down," Anderson told Larry King in 2002. "The first thing he said to me was, 'I'm going to marry you.' And I said, 'What, no one's ever said that to me in a first sentence.'" 

Four days later, Lee made good on his promise, and they were married. “I took off my pinky ring, put it on her finger, and asked her to marry me,” Tommy recalled in his autobiography. “ She said yes, hugged me, and stuck her tongue down my throat.” He added, “The next morning, we asked the hotel to find someone to perform a marriage ceremony. We gave blood, sniffed out a marriage license, and were on the beach getting married before the day was over. Instead of wedding bands, we went for something more permanent: Tattoos of each other’s names around our fingers.”

Returning from their trip, Anderson moved into Lee’s beach house in Malibu. 

Why We Loved Them: Pam and Tommy were the original architects of over-the-top celebrity PDA. Before Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker, Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly, it was Anderson and Lee who were the hot girl-rocker boy pairing touching tongues (er, biting nipples?) on the red carpet. 

As Pamela once put it, “Tommy and I started out having a very intense, fun, crazy relationship because we were two kids. We were madly in love. It wasn’t like drugs or alcohol or anything like that. We were both just really passionate about life."

When They Peaked: At the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards, Pam and Tommy wore what is perhaps the most iconic couple’s outfit ever to walk the red carpet. She paired a white corset with skintight sequined pants, blue eyeshadow to her brows, and a fluffy pink hat by Ivy Supersonic, while Tommy went naked underneath a tan trench coat. 

The Breakup: Over the course of their relationship, Pamela and Tommy broke up and got back together several times before officially splitting in 2010. However, the pair, who share two sons, Brandon and Dylan, were legally divorced in 1998 after Lee was arrested for spousal abuse and spent six months in jail. In court documents, Anderson cited irreconcilable differences and sought full custody of her and Lee’s sons, as well as the restoration of her maiden name. 

"The divorce from Tommy was the hardest, lowest, most difficult point of my life," Pamela wrote in her new memoir Love, Pamela, adding: "I was crushed. I still couldn't believe that the person I loved the most was capable of what had happened that night. We were both devastated, but I had to protect my babies."  

A sex tape scandal, and a subsequent miscarriage, also added stress to their relationship. "It ruined lives, starting with our relationship — and it's unforgivable that people, still to this day, think they can profit from such a terrible experience, let alone a crime," Anderson said of the sex tape.

Elsewhere in the book, Pamela wrote that her relationship with Tommy Lee "may have been the only time I was ever truly in love." And while the couple is no longer together, they do "check in" every once in a while, Pamela says. "Tommy is the father of my kids, and I'm forever grateful." 

Where They Are Now:  During one of her off periods with Tommy Lee, Pamela married Kid Rock in 2006, but they divorced the following year. She then wed Rick Salomon in 2007, however, that marriage was annulled. The couple remarried in 2014 and got divorced for a second time. Pamela married her fourth husband, her bodyguard Dan Hayhurst, in 2020, before they split less than a year later. Pamela is now single, and moved from Los Angeles to Vancouver Island.

After Hulu's Emmy-nominated series Pam & Tommy — which tells the story of the couple's stolen sex tape — was reportedly made without her approval, Pamela is telling her truth with her upcoming Netflix documentary Pamela, A Love Story (Jan. 31). The doc's debut also coincides with the release date of her memoir, Love, Pamela.

When he wasn't getting back together with Anderson, Tommy was linked to several other famous women — including Pink, Kimberley Stewart, and Prince's ex-wife Mayte Garcia. He got engaged to singer and rapper Sofia Toufa in 2014, but they never ended up making it down the aisle. Lee is now married to social media influencer Brittany Furlan. 

In 1999, Lee left Mötley Crüe to pursue a solo music career. He also went on to form a new rap-rock band Methods of Mayhem on the eve of his divorce from Anderson. Today, Lee is still making music, and released his latest album Andro in 2020.

#TBT: Check in every Thursday as we throw it back to some of our favorite celebrity couples of all time.