After claiming in her new memoir that Tim Allen flashed her in 1991 on the set of Home Improvement, Pamela Anderson is speaking out about the alleged incident.
“Tim is a comedian; it’s his job to cross the line. I’m sure he had no bad intentions,” the 55-year-old said in a texted statement to Variety. “Times have changed, though. I doubt anyone would try that post #MeToo. It’s a new world.”
Anderson, who played “tool girl” Lisa on Home Improvement opposite Allen as Tim Taylor, described the incident in question in her new memoir, Love, Pamela, due for release on Tuesday, January 31.
“On the first day of filming, I walked out of my dressing room, and Tim was in the hallway in his robe,” she wrote in the book, according to an excerpt published online by Variety. “He opened his robe and flashed me quickly — completely naked underneath. He said it was only fair, because he had seen me naked. Now we’re even. I laughed uncomfortably.”
At the time, Anderson was 23 and had already posed for Playboy. Allen, meanwhile, was 37.
Jeff Katz/Touchstone Television/Everett Collection
Allen, now 69, has denied Anderson’s story, telling the Los Angeles Times in a statement that the alleged incident “never happened.”
“I would never do such a thing,” the star of The Santa Clauses added.
After Anderson’s claim made headlines, TMZ resurfaced a Home Improvement outtake in which Allen lifts up his kilt in front of costar Patricia Richardson, who played his onscreen wife, Jill Taylor.
In that clip, Jill says Tim looks “sexy” in his kilt and adds that she “just wish[es] it was shorter.” Then Allen lifts up the kilt, much to Richardson’s apparent surprise.
The actor had his back to the camera, but Richardson told TMZ that her former costar didn’t expose himself to her. “People ask me what was under the kilt when he flashed me,” she said. “He was well dressed under there. I was just shocked that he lifted the kilt, not by a man in boxer shorts.”