Pamela Anderson Recalls Doctor's 10-Year 'Death Sentence'

Pamela Anderson revealed at the amfAR Gala in Venice that doctors told her she had about 10 years to live after her late-1990s hepatitis C diagnosis.

Pamela Anderson, 59, accepted the Award of Courage at the amfAR Gala Venezia 2026 on Sunday and used her speech to reflect on being diagnosed with hepatitis C in the late 1990s, when there was no cure. "It was a death sentence. That's what my doctor told me — that I probably had around 10 years to live," she said, according to Variety.

The surprise is the severity of the prognosis attached to a disease now considered curable, and how long Anderson carried the fear privately. She said she was diagnosed after sharing a tattoo needle with her ex-husband Tommy Lee, with whom she shares sons Brandon, 30, and Dylan, 28 — a detail multiple pack reports restate from her own prior disclosures. She told the crowd her fear centered not on dying but on what would happen to her children, and she admitted the prognosis may have "colored and corrupted" her decisions for years. According to The Daily Beast, her speech also linked the lingering stigma to earlier trauma, saying it felt "carved into my forehead: Damaged goods."

The medical arc underpinning her story spans nearly two decades. Page Six reports she first shared the diagnosis publicly in 2002, and that medications to cure hepatitis C were approved in 2011; by 2015 she was free of the disease. She told the Venice crowd the treatment "took everything I had in my bank," a financial burden she repeated across accounts of the speech. On the current state of medicine, The Daily Mail reports that chronic hepatitis C is now usually curable with daily oral medications taken for about eight to 12 weeks, a backdrop that makes her late-'90s outlook look dramatically dated. She had said she had no symptoms and was living normally ahead of her cure, per Page Six.

Even after being medically cleared, Anderson says the psychological toll persisted. "My experience of shame and guilt was also an unconscious journey. It stays with me; it haunts me," she said, per Variety, adding that she has never "fully recovered" from the diagnosis even though she has "finally come to terms" with it. EntertainmentNow frames that admission as evidence the damage extended far beyond the infection's physical effects, shaping how she saw herself long after her health improved. Her remarks to the gala also invoked the sexual abuse she endured as a child, tying the stigma of illness to an older sense of being marked.

Anderson closed her speech by casting survival as a source of strength rather than victimhood: "I'm not a victim, I'm a victor. I am strong and capable, more now than I could ever dream of … I'm not the damsel in distress, no matter how easy that role is to play." She said her truth has come through her work in the arts, which gave her "a fertile life to use and play in." The accolade lands amid a widely reported career resurgence built on "The Last Showgirl" — which brought Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations per The Daily Beast — "The Naked Gun" with Liam Neeson, and upcoming projects including "Place to Be," "Love Is Not the Answer," and "Somedays."

The speech also carried a forward-looking, public-health dimension fitting the amfAR platform, which funds research into AIDS and related diseases including hepatitis C, a common co-infection for people living with HIV, per Variety. The gala, presented by the World Gold Council at the Hilton Molino Stucky, raised $3 million for amfAR's biomedical research programs and honored Marina Abramović with the Award of Inspiration. For Anderson personally, "Place to Be" was set to premiere at the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday, per Variety, keeping her unlikely second act in the spotlight.