Lorde Criticized After Calling Pamela Anderson & Tommy Lee's Sex Tape 'Beautiful'

While speaking with Rolling Stone for its June 2025 cover story, the singer shared that she watched the former couple's unauthorizedly released tape, and called it "beautiful." Lorde, 28, admitted that she looked up the video after a psychedelic therapy session, noting that she's not sure why she watched it in its entirety.

"I found it to be so beautiful. And maybe it's f--ked up that I watched it, but I saw two people that were so in love with each other, and there was this purity," Lorde said. "They were jumping off this big boat.… They were like children. They were so free. And I just was like, "Whoa. Being this free comes with danger.'"

Anderson and Lee's sex tape was notoriously leaked to the public in 1995. The former has spoken out against the unauthorized release over the years, calling it "hurtful," and has said she's never seen it.

In her 2023 memoir, Love, Pamela, Anderson wrote that the sex tape leak took a toll on her marriage to Lee, shortly before the birth of their sons in 1996 and 1997. The breaking point of their marriage came after Lee assaulted her in 1998. Lee was arrested for spousal abuse and served four months of a six-month sentence. The couple subsequently divorced.

Following her revelation that she not only watched the sex tape, but found it "beautiful," Lorde was hit with backlash on social media, with users taking to X to slam the Grammy winner for her bizarre comments.

"Lorde is low key a hypocrite for this bc she dragged Lana for 'romanticizing abuse' and now she's reframing an abusive relationship as being 'beautiful' despite the fact Pamela Anderson has repeatedly stated how much that relationship/her sex tape being leaked traumatized her," a user wrote.

"Actually lorde does deserve the lashings…," another added. "Pamela has spoken out so many times about how violated she felt and still feels about it but I guess that doesn’t matter because it’s beautiful to lorde..? A pretentious joke."

"why are we asking LORDE what she thinks about Pam and Tommy??? This 'beautiful vid of two people in love' should’ve been kept private and still is a violation towards Pamela who didn't deserve the scrutiny she got from the public eye for it. we are glamorizing the wrong things," a third fan said, while another user wrote, "exactly this is gross why are you publicly talking about watching someone’s leaked sex tape that caused them an insane amount of trauma and humiliation…."

Meanwhile, another user reshared Rolling Stone's X post, and shared a screenshot of a quote from Anderson's 2023 Netflix documentary, Pamela: A Love Story, in which the Baywatch alum said, "If anyone watches it, if anyone buys it, if anyone sells it, it's just pathetic. You can't put a monetary number on the amount of pain and suffering it caused."

"Lorde, I just can't defend your ass no more," the person wrote alongside the screenshot.

However, these weren't the only comments from Lorde's Rolling Stone interview that raised eyebrows.

Elsewhere during the conversation, the "What Was That" singer shared that she went off birth control at the end of 2023, and had stopped taking the contraceptive pill for the first time since she was 15.

"I've now come to see [my decision] as maybe some quasi right-wing programming," Lorde said. "But I hadn’t ovulated in 10 years. And when I ovulated for the first time, I cannot describe to you how crazy it was. One of the best drugs I've ever done."

"I felt like stopping taking my birth control, I had cut some sort of cord between myself and this regulated femininity," she added. "It sounds crazy, but I felt that all of a sudden, I was off the map of femininity. And I totally believed that that allowed things to open up."

Some online took issue with Lorde alluding that her decision to go off the birth control pill was due to being influenced by right-wing misinformation.

"I think it's very interesting how Lorde prefaces her positive experiences going off birth control with a caveat that it was due to right-wing influences," a user wrote.

"posting about lorde going off birth control without mentioning she was influenced by right wing disinformation is a choice… this whole article/rollout is so 🫠 ," another added.

"she really woke up that day and said let's see how far back i can set feminism in a single interview," a third user wrote alongside Rolling Stone's X post about her comments.

Despite praising the "drug" of being off birth control, Lorde said she later faced other challenges, revealing she was diagnosed with premenstrual dysphoric ­disorder (PMDD.) The condition causes severe irritability, depression, or anxiety in the week or two before your period starts.

According to Rolling Stone, Lorde subsequently went back on birth control, opting for an IUD rather than a pill. The cover of her upcoming album, Virgin, features an X-ray of her inserted IUD.