Surviving the perils of Pamela

Star comes out of a turbulent marriage with a new TV series and a healthy attitude

 Despite the earnest efforts of her handlers, Pamela Anderson Lee continues just to be herself.

"I am what I am and I'm a horrible liar. I can't do it. I'm just very candid," Lee explained in her sweet baby voice, on the phone Monday from New York where she was promoting her new series, VIP.

"(They'll) sit down with me and go, 'Pamela, don't talk about this, don't talk about that, don't talk about this,' " she said.

"They think if you're not talking about the show, everything else is garbage. But the thing is, I think a lot of my appeal is I have always been very real.

"People are interested -- kind of like with the concept of my show -- people are interested in a smalltown girl getting thrown into the middle of this. It's like an experiment. 'What's happening to her now?' I know I'm always in trouble. What's going to happen next to me? There's always so much drama."

Resisting an image remake isn't the only battle Lee fought in bringing VIP to the small screen. Conceived as a Jane Bond-ish action show, she used her leverage as executive producer to soften its edge, add lots of comedy and make her character, celebrity bodyguard agency figurehead Vallery Irons, more like herself.

She turned Vallery into a fish out of water, the way Lee's often felt on the road from growing up in Comox, on Vancouver Island, to becoming the Tool Time girl on Home Improvement then the uber-Baywatch Babe and a pop culture icon. What she learned on the journey makes fun fodder on VIP, which spoofs vain, dullard actors, Hollywood hype, and showbusiness myths.

Pauly Shore, Jerry Springer, Jay Leno, Coolio and Robin Leach have filmed cameos. Howard Stern, Magic Johnson and Shaquile O'Neal want to. Created by Pretty Woman screenwriter J.F. Lawton, VIP's plots let Lee play outrageous dress-up, such as going undercover on a sci-fi movie set in pink afro and Barbarella-wear.

"It's just very light. We realize we're not doing ER or Masterpiece Theatre or anything like that," said Lee, not a woman who loses sleep worrying that she's not Meryl Streep.

"I'm really happy doing what I'm doing. I think this is a really good next move for me in my career, just to explore this character and kind of put it out there. Even since we've started, people have looked at me a little differently. I'm getting scripts that are more comedic. I'm so wrapped up in the show that I can't even do anything else,but that's kind of good too. In Hollywood, if you're busy and they can't have you, they want you even more."

With VIP set to premiere -- it debuts here Monday night on CITY -- she's everywhere, on the covers of Jane, Cosmo and Details, the latter a re-creation of Farrah Fawcett's famous orange bathing suit poster shot. Monday, she did Howard Stern, where she always holds her own with self-deprecating humour. Tomorrow, she's on The Tonight Show. Her ex, Moetley Cruee rocker Tommy Lee is on TV tomorrow too, giving Dateline NBC his first interview since finishing his jail term for assaulting her last winter.

Other than in court, she hasn't seen him since his arrest.

"I really support Tommy in his evolution as a human being," she said, calling him a "very, very, very, very talented" musician. "But I'm obviously going to choose the safest and the best situation for my children.

"As much as I love Tommy -- and there's things about him that I'll always be connected to -- I have to be adult enough for both of us to realize that this is a situation that isn't going to be good for our children. There's no going back."

Going forward, but not too fast, Lee has her parents living with her and her two little boys now. On Monday she wasn't watching the broadcast of President Bill Clinton's grand jury testimony -- sexual privacy being a touchy issue with her since the bootlegged copies of her and Tommy's explicit sex video -- but someone was.

"I came in and I go, 'Mom, what are you watching? And she goes, 'Nothing!' And changes the channel."

And despite what the rumour mill may churn, Lee called it too soon for her to start dating anyone seriously -- including Philadelphia Flyers winger Alexander Daigle.

"Oh God. I went out for dinner with him. Once. No, I'm not dating him. I'm dating, but I'm not dating one particular person. In my mind, I'm dating thousands of people."

At which she lost control of her tinkling ha-ha-ha-ha giggle.

"There you go. I just ruined my reputation, my squeaky-clean image. I'm so sorry."