'Baywatch' stars admit show 'really wasn't good,' reveal how actors made it great
The plot of "Baywatch" "really wasn't that good," according to the show's biggest stars years later.
"Baywatch" starred David Hasselhoff, Pamela Anderson, Jeremy Jackson, Alexandra Paul, Carmen Electra, Yasmine Bleeth, David Charvet, Nicole Eggert and more. The show ran from 1989 through 2001 and at its peak drew 1.2 billion viewers per week. Eggert, who portrayed Summer Quinn, teamed up with her former cast to reflect on the TV series in the docuseries "Baywatch: Moment in the Sun."
Nearly 35 years later, the cast can admit the plot lines were a little absurd.
"The show really wasn’t good," Hasselhoff admitted in the docuseries, via People magazine. "But we made it good because we had passion."
Kelly Slater, who portrayed young surfer Jimmy Slade, recalled filming an episode where an octopus stole their surfboard and held them hostage.
"I felt like the writing was so nonsensical in so many ways," he said.
However, the "nonsensical" writing seemingly helped the show.
"We were the butt of jokes on ‘The Tonight Show With Jay Leno’ all the time, and every time he said a joke, our ratings went up," co-creator Douglas Schwartz explained.
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Despite the success of the show, the "Baywatch" actors weren't paid much. Each star earned $3,500 per episode, according to Eggert.
"'Friends' at that point I think they were each making $1 million an episode," she said during the docuseries.
Adds Erika Eleniak, "I actually remember freaking out seeing my first paycheck after the taxes were taken out. How am I honestly going to live on this money?"
"There's not one rich actor on ‘Baywatch.’ Not one," said Billy Warlock, who starred as Eddie Kramer for two seasons of the show.
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Eggert, who spearheaded the "Baywatch" docuseries project, gave fans an update on her cancer journey at Monday's premiere.
"I am good," Eggert told People magazine on the red carpet. "I am in sort of a gray area and I finished my treatment, waiting for more imaging and hopefully maybe surgery."
"And there's a lot of waiting in this and it's sort of something I didn't really realize and nobody really talks about," she explained. "But the gray area is the hardest because you don't know what's happening, and you're just, when I'm doing treatment, I felt like I was doing something productive."
Eggert was diagnosed with stage 2 cribriform carcinoma breast cancer in 2023.