Pamela Anderson and Liam Neeson are making headlines for a very wholesome reason: They’re reportedly dating.
While promoting their upcoming comedy, The Naked Gun, out Friday, Anderson and Neeson have been seen cozying up to one another on the red carpet and singing each other’s praises in interviews with the press.
“I had never met Pamela before,” Neeson said on Today on Tuesday. “We met on set, and we discovered we had a lovely, budding chemistry — as two actors. And it was like, ‘Oh, this is nice. Let’s not mold this, let’s just let it breathe.’ And that’s what we did.”
Anderson was equally effusive in an interview with Entertainment Weekly earlier this month. “I think I have a friend forever in Liam,” she said. “We definitely have a connection that is very sincere, very loving. He’s a good guy.”
Then on Tuesday, People exclusively reported that the costars are dating, citing a source close to the movie who said, “It’s a budding romance in the early stages. It’s clear they’re smitten with each other.”
The news seemed to generate a nearly unanimous reaction from the internet: Anderson and Neeson are absolutely a couple worth rooting for.
Pamela Anderson and Liam Neeson at a Naked Gun screening in the U.K., July 22. (John Phillips/Getty Images)
“Liam Neeson and Pam Anderson are officially dating & I love them,” one fan wrote on X. Writer Caitlin Flanagan added, “Pamela Anderson can keep going until she’s 103 and she’ll always have men who want to be with her. For every gormless male who has made clear his disdain for her make-up free face — you just don’t get it.”
Anderson and Neeson have each dealt with their share of personal hardships. That both seem to have found love again has many fans celebrating their reported relationship.
For Anderson in particular, the budding romance is a bonus for fans who are happy to see the 58-year-old finally being taken seriously as an actress after many years of being the subject of sexualization and scandal.
Early reviews of The Naked Gun have praised Anderson’s comedic performance, with the San Francisco Chronicle calling her “a skilled and self-aware comedienne” and the Hollywood Reporter commending her “display of impeccable comedic timing.”
Wrote one X user, “Anyone else feel elated that Pamela Anderson, who for decades was never taken seriously for her acting, bravery, intelligence, generosity, kind nature, love of animals, and the tabloids relentless harassment. She is getting this second career and proving everyone wrong.”
From left: Dylan Jagger Lee, Brandon Thomas Lee, Pamela Anderson, Liam Neeson, Daniel Neeson and Micheál Neeson at The Naked Gun New York premiere on July 28. (Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty Images)
Anderson’s career has been rife with intense objectification by the media. The actress, who got her start in Hollywood gracing Playboy centerfolds and patrolling Los Angeles beaches on Baywatch, often fielded questions that pertained exclusively to her body rather than her talent.
“Because I’d done Playboy, because I was on Baywatch, I wasn’t really reaching my full potential as an artist or an actress,” Anderson told Bustle in 2023. “People were asking me specific things about my breasts, about sex, sexual stories. People would just come up to me in a restaurant and say, ‘Tell me a sex story, Pamela.’”
Anderson became one half of a wildly infamous tabloid couple when she married rocker Tommy Lee, with whom she shares two sons, in 1995. It was during their whirlwind romance that Anderson became an unwilling star of a stolen sex tape, which led to even more prurient media coverage. Their relationship ended in 1998, amid reports of abuse.
Neeson, meanwhile, was married to actress Natasha Richardson, with whom he shares sons Micheàl and Daniel, from 1994 until her death in 2009. Richardson suffered a traumatic brain injury during a skiing accident in Montreal. The actor, now 73, immediately returned to work following Richardson’s death, because he didn’t want his sons to see him “wallow in sadness or depression.”
The Taken star, during a 2024 interview with People, said he no longer had an interest in dating.
“I’m past all that,” he told the outlet.
Pamela Anderson and Liam Neeson. (Cindy Ord/Getty Images for SiriusXM)
Anderson wasn’t actively seeking a relationship either. When asked by Bustle in 2023 whether she’d consider getting married again, The Last Showgirl star said “maybe,” while outlining the ideal way she’d like to meet someone.
“I want to be the one who catches someone’s glance across the way on the subway, or my dog’s leashes get tangled up with someone in Central Park, and we fall in love,” she said. “That’s the kind of love I like. I like this really romantic, meant-to-be stuff. That’s what will happen — or not. If it doesn’t, it’s okay, too.”
Where Neeson and Anderson’s relationship goes from here remains to be seen, though fans are hopeful that theirs will be a forever kind of love.
“Y’all really don’t understand, like I love this for the both of them,” one TikTok user said in a recent video. “To see that these two were brought together on the set of their new movie, The Naked Gun, is just … there’s life after love, after heartbreak, after hardship. … It’s just something so refreshing about seeing people their age still finding love, still being so deeply in love, still being all giddy and blushing when talking about one another.”
