Former star of ‘Baywatch’ program could have drowned in debt
if Sarah Hom and Kristina Pentek hadn’t returned her ATM card
By: Mark Moffa
HIGHTSTOWN – "I was like ‘That’s Pamela Anderson!’ but they didn’t believe me," said Sarah Hom, who will be a junior at The Peddie School this fall.
Sarah and three other Peddie students were in a Malibu, Calif., shopping center when they saw someone who looked like Pamela Anderson walking up to an automatic teller machine.
Sarah, who lives in Millstone, said she thought she recognized Ms. Anderson’s barbed wire tattoo.
Kristina Pentek, a Lawrence resident who just graduated from Peddie, was on the trip with Sarah.
"We didn’t think it was her," Kristina said. "We had ultimately decided it wasn’t her."
At that point, Kristina remembered she had to use the machine as well, so she got in line behind the alleged Pam Anderson.
After she approached the machine, Kristina was unable to insert her bank card. She then looked at the screen, which was asking her if she wanted to make another transaction. She declined, and the machine spit out someone else’s bank card.
Kristina immediately ran to return to card to its owner, glancing at the card as she chased its owner into a nearby surf shop. It was then that saw the name: "Pamela Sue Anderson."
Kristina was shocked. She quickly handed the card back to the celebrity.
"She said something like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m so stupid for doing that,’ " Kristina said.
"Between the MAC card and seeing the tattoo, we knew it was her," said Susan James, a Peddie spokesperson who also advises the school’s Operation Smile club.
The club members were in Malibu attending a youth conference at Pepperdine University for Operation Smile, a national nonprofit medical organization that helps kids with facial deformities in Third World countries.
Kristina quickly walked away from Ms. Anderson, but then returned to ask for a photo. Ms. Anderson obliged.
"I didn’t think anyone would believe that I had met her," said Kristina, who now has proof. She said she didn’t feel awkward when she approached Ms. Anderson to return the card, but was nervous to ask for the picture.
"It was kind of a nice end to a wonderful conference," Ms. James said.
Her husband, a journalist for Reuters who used to work in Los Angeles, thought the story was interesting – so he filed a short article for the news wire.
Sure enough, the news was published and broadcast locally.
Upon returning from the trip, Ms. James said there were several messages for her from People magazine.