Pamela Anderson says going without makeup has ‘saved a lot of time’

Pamela Anderson didn’t start going makeup-free to save time, but it’s a welcome result.

During the January 8 episode of Lives with Kelly and Mark, The Last Showgirl The 57-year-old star discussed her decision to ditch her glam in recent years — and how it affected her life — after co-host Kelly Ripa pointed out that she’s “an extremely low-maintenance star.”

“You don’t travel with a glam squad. How liberating is that for you?” Ripa, 54, asked as co-host Mark Consuelos added, “And how much time have you got back?”

“Oh, I’ve saved a lot of time,” Anderson replied, revealing that her children — she shares two grown sons with ex Tommy Lee — “used to say I spent half my life in a makeup chair.”

Anderson has been there and “done” that, she told the hosts. “I mean, I loved it,” she said of wearing glam around the clock. “It’s fun when you’re new to the industry and you get all that attention. But I feel like I’ve done it, and I kind of just wanted to simplify and keep it low-key.”

The actress also said that going makeup free affected her acting career in a positive way.

“I feel like I could also focus better when I was making the movie,” she said of working on the film directed by Gia Coppola. “Of course you have … there’s a whole team around you that does it. But in my personal life, even on red carpets and a few magazine covers, I’ve gotten away from wearing makeup and it’s been fun.”

Ripa then explained that while Live was on hiatus for two weeks, she followed in the star’s footsteps and also went glam-free. “And I thought, ‘Pamela Anderson is a genius,'” she recalled. “That’s the way to live! That’s the way to live!”

“I love glamour. I love being elegant, sophisticated. You know I love it. But I feel like this is just what works best for me,” Anderson replied. “I love makeup in a photo shoot or on a movie to play a character. But for me, I feel like even with this HD or other kind of photography, I don’t know if it makes me look better to be full of makeup. So I’m just experimenting.”

“I sometimes try a little blush, a little lip color, you know, sometimes,” she added. “But then I kind of go back to (natural).”

Anderson only started going makeup-free after her longtime makeup artist died of cancer in 2019, but didn’t make headlines for the decision until about four years later, when she showed up to Paris Fashion Week in fall 2023 without an ounce of makeup.

While discussing her new glam-free look at the time, the actress shared Vogue France“I don’t know, something just came over me and I put on these beautiful clothes and I thought, ‘I don’t want to compete with the clothes.’ ”

“I’m not trying to be the prettiest girl in the room. I feel like it’s just freedom,” she added. “It’s a release.”

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Since then, Anderson – who announced last year that she had co-founded Sonsie Skin – has appeared at several other events with a fresh face. Most recently, she hit the red carpet at the Golden Globes 2025 – where she was nominated for her role in The Last Showgirl — in a silky black Oscar de la Renta dress, matching opera gloves, Pandora jewelry, faithful, glowing skin.