You would think Pamela Anderson had one of the most distinguishable faces on planet Earth, given her massive fame over the last century, but, as it turns out, even she can get mistaken for somebody else.
In an interview for Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, the actress recounted an unfortunate episode aboard a flight when a random man threatened and nearly attacked her. It turns out the man was under the impression she was a member of the once controversial country band The Dixie Chicks (just The Chicks since 2020). The incident happened around 2003 when the band condemned the United States’ invasion of Iraq and expressed shame that President George W. Bush was from their home state of Texas.
Anderson recalled the man going up to her and angrily asking her, “Do you know what this country’s done for you?” which had her seriously worried she had screwed up somehow. “And I was like, ‘Oh, my God. What have I done?,’” she told Horowitz during the live talk at New York’s 92nd Street Y on for the release of Anderson’s big comeback to acting in Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl.
The man then sat behind her, growling at her every time she looked over. In the end, the actress said, he was handcuffed to his chair by the stewardess because “he was trying to attack [Anderson].” The 57-year-old half-joked that she “almost got killed on a plane” and that the whole ordeal made her scared to fly for a “little bit” after.
The Dixie Chicks were banned from country radios and fiercely chastised for opposing the war in Iraq
After making their anti-Bush statement on stage in London in March 2003, The Chicks’ predominantly conservative country audience turned on them. Still reeling from the violence and tragedy of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the United States were experiencing an especially patriotic period, effectively turning up the usual flag-waving nature of the country scene up to 100.
The Chicks were blacklisted from dozens of radio stations, with listeners calling in en masse to request that their music be banned. According to a Billboard article published at the time, protests against the band included tractors running over their CDs and merch and radio stations placing designated “trashcans outside its offices for listeners to toss” their Chicks’ memorabilia in.
While many were fierce supporters of America’s so-called “war on terrorism,” The Chicks weren’t the only people opposing the invasion of Iraq. Controversy stemmed primarily from the U.S. and its allies’ failure to provide hard evidence of the Iraqi government’s involvement with Al-Qaeda or possession of weapons of mass destruction, used as justifications for the war.
The new generation might also fail to recognize Pamela Anderson, but that is about to change
Beyond the plane kerfuffle, something else links Pamela Anderson to The Chicks: the misogynistic backlash they’ve experienced. For years, Anderson was reduced to her physical appearance, particularly after the sex tape she made with then-husband Tommy Lee was leaked. Her turbulent love life became a free-for-all in the media, privacy became non-existent, and it snowballed into decades of toxic relationships. Until 2022.
After a stint mostly out of the spotlight, Anderson began reshaping her life and planning a comeback to acting. It started with Chicago on Broadway and has culminated in the last year with her first major lead role in decades in the critically acclaimed The Last Showgirl. In January, she received her first major award nomination at the Golden Globes.
The world looks a little different today from the media ruthlessness of the ’90s, which taunted and poked and traumatized women like Pamela Anderson, or the 2000s, which silenced dissenters and discouraged opinionated celebrities like The Chicks. Unfortunately and terrifyingly, however, it also seems to be rapidly going backward. Still, women like these thankfully teach us that we should never allow our lives to be defined by the opinions of others. So, in a way, it’s not a bad thing at all that someone mistook one for the other. Even if it nearly got Pamela Anderson “killed.”
