David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson may have been pulled back together by the orbit of Dwayne Johnson’s Instagram (and the Baywatch movie), but theirs was not a natural alliance. Turns out, Hasselhoff supposedly didn’t even want Anderson on the original Baywatch show. His reason: He didn’t think children should be (bay) watching her. That’s according to Baywatch’s original producers, Michael Berk and Douglas Schwartz, who gave The Hollywood Reporter some insight into the reasoning (Hasselhoff) behind many of the show’s early decisions (make Hasselhoff look good). Berk says Hasselhoff tried to nix Anderson’s casting, which came during the beachy soap’s second season, allegedly saying: “I don’t want a girl that’s been in Playboy … Children watch this show.†Of course, Schwartz also remembers some less prurient considerations. “She had these enormous breasts … and David thought he would be upstaged by everyone looking at her breasts,†Schwartz recalls. David Hasselhoff, sacrificing himself as a human shield against the objectification of female forms: What a gent.
Hasselhoff was also apparently worried about losing focus to more than just Anderson. Leonardo DiCaprio was this close to getting some pre-Titanic ocean experience, with his casting as Hasselhoff’s son practically a done deal. That plan got the kibosh when Hasselhoff objected to how old the then 15-year-old DiCaprio would make him look. Per Schwartz, “He had a lot of concerns of that type.†You don’t say.