BROOKS NADER may have the same blonde locks, skimpy red bikini and perfect curves as her Baywatch predecessor Pamela Anderson, but the similarities do not end there.
We can reveal that the beauty — set to play CJ Parker in a reboot of the hit US beach drama — has faced many of the same hurdles as Pammy, who made the TV role world-famous in the Nineties.
Both stars came from poor households and were raised in unfashionable neighbourhoods.
Like Pammy, Brooks, 29, was plucked from obscurity to become a pin-up.
She won the 2019 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue’s nationwide casting call and went on to model for the brand.
Meanwhile, 30 years earlier, Pammy had featured on the huge “jumbotron” screen during a US footie game and was noticed by Labatt Beer execs, who decided to hire her.
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Their personal lives also have much in common. Both women are divorced after marrying young.
Brooks got hitched to advertising exec Billy Haire, then aged 22, while Pammy, now 58, wed Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee when she was 27. Neither union lasted.
And Brooks has proven to be just as open about her wild nights and troubled personal life as Pammy was in her prime.
In fact, despite only making her TV debut two years ago on America’s Dancing With The Stars, Brooks has already found her sex life drawing attention after it was claimed she would romp with her pro partner Gleb Savchenko on set.
The couple dated but later split.
Elsewhere, Pammy was left reeling after a 1995 sex tape she made with Tommy Lee was leaked.
Speaking out after Brooks was photographed last month on a date with British actor Taron Egerton, one Hollywood producer said: “Stepping into Pamela Anderson’s bikini was always going to be a big challenge, but Brooks is a force of nature.
“She has a fierce personality and a steely streak that has helped her go from being a complete nobody to one of the biggest stars in America in just a few years.”
Growing up in sleepy Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Brooks never imagined she would one day be dubbed the next Pamela Anderson, her body plastered all over Hollywood billboards.
Her dad Breaux Nader earned the equivalent of £10,000 a year working for a Christian sports organisation when she was young, while mum Holland was a school nurse.
Their combined income was not enough to pay for swimming lessons for their eldest daughter, which presented Brooks with an unusual dilemma when she landed her first major acting gig as a lifeguard.
After being unveiled in her Baywatch cossie for the first time last week, Brooks told website TMZ: “I’m having acting lessons — and I’m going to surprise everyone — swimming lessons every day. I have the hardest swim trainer ever.”
Brooks has previously told of growing up with her three sisters, revealing: “We had humble beginnings, living on my grand-parents’ property in a small, two-bedroom house.
“We are close in age — all four of us are five years apart — so we entertained ourselves and played in mud piles.
“Being Southern, we were into bows, hair and smock dresses. My mum thought it was adorable.
“We went to church every Sunday at 8am in our dresses and bows and stayed for three hours.
“Dad worked for the Fellowship Of Christian Athletes and had four daughters when he was 25.
“He made $12,000 a year. Our whole upbringing was centred around Christian camps, sports and Christianity.”
Speaking on Olivia Attwood’s Olivia’s House podcast, Brooks added: “There wasn’t any alcohol, there wasn’t any cursing.
“We did everything as a family, so I feel that bonded us in a crazy way.
“But I always found myself getting in trouble for ripping out pages at the grocery store of Paris Hilton or Britney Spears in the tabloids and pinning them to my wall.
“My mum would get so angry and be like, that’s a life of sin. That’s not fulfilling. I thought it was a fairytale.”
Pammy, meanwhile, grew up in the small Canadian town of Ladysmith, on Vancouver Island in British Columbia.
Her dad Barry was a furnace repairman and mum Carol a waitress. It was that gridiron game in Vancouver however, that changed her life for ever.
She was caught on the jumbotron screen sporting tousled hair and wearing a skimpy Labatt Beer T-shirt that showed off her midriff.
This was long before “going viral” online existed, yet Pammy became famous overnight. She was then hired to star in a beer ad before being flown to LA to pose for Playboy.
In 1992, Pammy made her debut as CJ Parker in Baywatch, a show about Californian lifeguards, which trans-formed her into a household name.
Subsequent attempts to be taken seriously as an actress had mixed success. Her 1996 appearance in action flick Barb Wire was a flop, while
The Last Showgirl earned her a Golden Globe nomination last year. And she had enjoyed a career boost playing Roxie in a Broadway production of Chicago in 2022.
The following year, her critically acclaimed Netflix documentary, Pamela, A Love Story, was released.
Around the same time, Brooks was cementing her reputation as a swimsuit model by appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine, despite her mum’s ban on showing off too much flesh.
Brooks revealed: “We had a huge rule in our family — no two-piece bikinis, only one-pieces.
“Mum was like, ‘You follow the family rules, you’re in a one-piece on the cover’. I was like, ‘Damn it’. I wanted to be a rebel so hard, but I was in a one-piece.”
Brooks got engaged to Billy Naire in 2018, when she was 21.
She has joked in interviews that she only started seeing him as she wanted to find a “hot rich finance guy” who could support her while she modelled in New York.
They married in 2019 and announced their divorce in 2024 — which hit her parents hard.
“They loved him — it was awful” Brooks later admitted.
Then came the 2024 season of Dancing With The Stars.
She was paired with Russian professional Gleb Savchenko and quickly fell into bed with him, later boasting of having wild sex whenever they were alone together.
Brooks said: “All we did was have sex, because I didn’t really talk to him that much.”
The lovers finished the show in ninth place, but Brooks emerged a winner by landing her own reality TV show, Love Thy Nader, alongside her sisters Mary Holland, Sarah Jane and Grace Ann, which was released last year.
It has led to the sisters being compared to the Kardashians and produced immediate drama, with Brooks accusing Gleb of cheating — which he denied.
She claimed that she discovered he had been unfaithful when she opened his phone and allegedly found a contact saved as “threesome girl”.
Speaking on the same Olivia Attwood podcast, Brooks claimed she was limited on what she could say about the split with Gleb as, “I don’t want to get sued again”.
Episode five of the sisters’ series was apparently originally titled Sextapes And Silence and carried the strapline: “Brooks wrestles with living with the threat of a sex tape hanging over her head.”
However, it was reportedly renamed Get Real and there was no mention of intimate footage.
Such a scandal would have mirrored Pammy’s nightmare when the X-rated film of her and Tommy Lee was stolen then put on the internet.
It caused years of embarrassment and inspired the 2022 Disney+ series Pam And Tommy.
Through all the ups and downs, singer Ellie Goulding has been by Brooks’ side.
She said of her bestie: “I met her two summers ago through a mutual friend and we instantly hit it off.
“She loves to party. She’s just fun, talented, amazing, hot, sexy.”
Brooks has yet to comment on her romance with Kingsman star Taron Egerton who, at 36, is seven years her senior.
But she did previously say: “I feel like maybe I should move to the UK for dating. The guys are hot.”
For now, Brooks is focusing on her Baywatch role. The 12-episode series for Fox is due to be released later this year.
Addressing the comparisons with Pammy, she laughs as she reveals her show ambitions to “find my Tommy Lee. Be toxic. Get married and divorced again. Within a few months, probably.”
Sounds like she plans to dive right in . . .
