Carmen Electra's Revival in 2023: A Year of Renewal | Vanity Fair
Article by Beatrice Hazlehurst
In a recent Skims swimwear campaign, Carmen Electra can be seen posing next to a red Ferrari, wearing nothing but a black string bikini while her long, honey-blonde hair billows out behind her. Commenting on her ageless beauty, a young friend of hers zooms in on the advertisement, blowing Electra's image up to a size that's visible from outer space and exclaims, "Imagine being this hot at, like, 50."
Several days prior to this, I found myself waiting for the 51-year-old Electra at the Hollywood Roosevelt’s poolside restaurant. Despite a rare Southern California rain, Electra arrived causing a commotion among the staff, all deserting their tasks to rush to greet her. Seeing her in person, she's everything one might expect from her 90s image - clad in a leather jacket and her eyes rimmed with black eyeliner, bluer than ever.
Having made a name for herself over two decades ago with MTV, Baywatch, and Playboy, Electra is still keeping the public's interest. Over the past year, she appeared in Good Burger 2, fronted a swim campaign for the popular brand Skims alongside Jenny McCarthy, collaborated with Australian clothing brand I.AM.GIA on the Electra collection, and had Hailey Bieber dress up as her Scary Movie character for Halloween. Expressing her gratitude for the continued interest, Electra admitted that she can't quite put her finger on why the attention persists.
At the I.AM.GIA's House of Gia event on August 25, 2023, hosted by Carmen Electra, she reflected, “It’s so very sweet. Not everything works…You need to remain grounded despite the success.”
Electra's career started in the ‘90s, when she was still unknown and trying to make a name for herself in the industry. After meeting Prince and working with him on her music career, opportunities began to open up for her. She found agents and managers interested in her, and she even had a role written especially for her in the 2000's Scary Movie.
The young girl born as Tara Leigh Patrick could have been devoured by Hollywood if it weren't for her parents' encouragement and her own diligence. Her journey began when she was spotted in an LA nightclub by Graffiti Bridge actor Robin Power and invited to Prince’s house, where she rebranded herself as Carmen Electra.
Electra speaks fondly of her initial meeting with Prince, who left her a note asking her to watch movies with him. While she had no initial intention of a romantic relationship with Prince, she could not deny his persistent interest in her. Electra moved on to live and record with Prince as a solo artist, and she soon became his muse.
Electra admitted, “It was over time that I fell in love with him.” She recalls how Prince had her outfits custom-made and influenced her fashion choices heavily. Despite acknowledging Prince's controlling nature, she expressed her admiration and affection for him.
In her time living at Paisley Park, Electra occupied varying roles among the other women present. She would sleep fully dolled up with heels at the ready, anticipating any early-morning visits. Even though her mother suggested becoming her manager, Electra refused. As time passed, her mother grew more apprehensive about Prince's influence over Electra. In response, she began making frequent 10-hour journeys to Paisley Park, questioning Prince’s team about their intentions for her daughter.
Electra recalls these experiences with strong deliberation, reminiscent of someone who has often been misjudged. Predictably, her vulnerability as a young woman might have stirred feelings of defensiveness or even possessiveness.
She recounts hearing from people at Paisley Park, encouraging her to strike out on her own, questioning if she wanted to be dependent on Paisley Park for life. An assistant claimed there was more to life than this scenario, sparking a lightbulb moment for Electra.
Despite Prince's regular assurances of fidelity, the continuous influx of new faces at Paisley Park made it hard to believe. After the less-than-stellar performance of her maiden musical effort, a melodic rap album, Electra decided to part ways with Prince and Paisley Park. She took refuge in an LA condo provided by Prince that came with security. She subsequently determined to try making a living independently, leading her into a demanding situation in Los Angeles.
Shortly, she found herself in seedy conditions, often crashing at friends' places. After a terrifying encounter at gunpoint, she reached out to Prince. She confessed her struggles, including an abusive relationship and financial woes.
Prince offered her a gig hosting a weekly dance show at his club, Erotic City, which gave Electra a steady, albeit modest, income. This opportunity became Electra's springboard into a successful Playboy pictorial and then onto roles in independent films. Her replacements for exiting MTV host Jenny McCarthy made her a standout choice on the popular dating show Singled Out. In 1996, Electra joined Baywatch, despite her not knowing how the producers found her or overlooked her inability to swim.
Interestingly, despite appearing in some significant parody series of the decade, Electra admits she never harbored any dreams of becoming a mainstream act. On the contrary, she always felt more comfortable playing herself, featuring in many films and TV shows as the character "Carmen Electra." Electra went on to make significant waves with Scary Movie, where her Playboy career subtly alluded.
In terms of her willingness to poke fun at herself, Marlon Wayans, a notable actor and comedian, commended Electra. The producers initially wanted Melissa Joan Hart and Jenny McCarthy, Keenen Ivory Wayans reportedly insisted on having Electra in the movie instead. The film had immense success, grossing $278 million worldwide against a $19 million budget, and triggered a flurry of parody films in the following decade.
According to Electra, Scary Movie was a watershed moment for her career and impacted how audiences perceived her. By the end of the 1990s, Electra now had another level of celebrity status courtesy of her MTV appearances, her role in Baywatch, and her bold red-carpet fashion. That aside, her relationship with professional basketball player Dennis Rodman drew significant media attention. Remarkably, they reportedly pledged to stay together forever just after their first date, when Electra was just 26.
“[He said] ‘I’m never leaving you. You’re never leaving me.’ He was very ‘your mine’-type thing…then I kind of realized, Wow, this is going to be my responsibility. Because if he doesn’t play good, it’ll always be the girlfriend or the wife’s fault. From the public, but also from the players.”
Michael Jordan personally requested Electra to appear in his ESPN docuseries about the 1997–1998 Chicago Bulls, The Last Dance. In her interview, Electra recounted disappearing with Rodman to Vegas—only to be woken up by Jordan himself when Rodman missed practice. Electra says Rodman began demanding her presence before he’d play, which meant she would balance her Baywatch shooting schedule and Bulls games. In August 1998, Electra’s mother died of brain cancer. Two weeks later, her sister died of a heart attack. That fall, as Electra worked and partied through her grief, she married Rodman in a Las Vegas ceremony, but they were divorced by April 1999. The following November, she and the basketball player were both arrested after a fight in a hotel room for simple battery, a misdemeanor—further fueling the media frenzy surrounding them. (Prosecutors later dropped the charges.)“People couldn’t understand why I would be with him,” Electra revealed. “I was trying to get away. He’d say, ‘If you don’t let me in [to your house], I’m taking all my clothes off in the street.’ It’s like, I don’t want any more attention. We were so on the news so much that we didn’t even want to watch TV.”
Still, she’s not without regret over the Rodman relationship. “If we could have grown more together, I really saw myself being with him forever,” she continued. “I know how much he loved me.”
By 2003, Electra had found her twin flame in another star, Jane’s Addiction and Red Hot Chilli Peppers guitarist Dave Navarro. The wise-cracking musician and Electra shared an instant, camera-ready connection. Photographer David LaChapelle styled the pair naked on gurneys for their wedding invitation, she said Hugh Hefner attended their wedding with playmates in tow, and the pair was tapped for their own MTV reality show, Til Death Do Us Part: Carmen and Dave. “It was really beautiful in a gothic, beautiful and kind of dark [way],” she said. “Dark and light combined.”
The marriage lasted four years, throughout which, Electra remembers Navarro’s substance abuse and alleged infidelity were front-page news. “I had never been around a junkie,” Electra said. “My friends told me that you have to be there because if you’re not, he’s going to die…it was very, very hard for me and something that I didn’t understand. And [his cheating] was on the cover of every magazine, I was really embarrassed. Dealing with that publicly on top of everything.”
A representative for Navarro did not reply to a request for comment. Electra still is on good terms with all her famous exes. Before Prince died, she said they had plans to reunite in the studio. She and Rodman share the same representation, whom she says has implied Rodman might like to get back together (“I would if we could,” she says today). The actor has also considered reconnecting with Navarro, with whom it has always been a case of “wrong place, wrong time.” She feels it’s kismet that Navarro and Prince share the same birthday.“I was very codependent,” she said of her earlier relationships. “My feeling was, Wow, when I needed you, where were you?”While Carmen Electra might be single, she’s not without admirers. You can pay for the pleasure of her virtual company via OnlyFans, where she leverages her enduring status as a sex symbol and even shares exclusives on the site alongside the likes of Sopranos actor Drea de Matteo. These days, Electra cedes control to no one, save Kim Kardashian. She and McCarthy, also 51, had a “good laugh” about reuniting in bikinis for the Skims campaign.
Shawn Wayans, Carmen Electra and Marlon Wayans during MTV Movie Awards 2004.
Marlon Wayans compared her to the Skims founder. “She was the Kim Kardashian of that day,” he said. “She was the Julius Erving to Michael Jordan. She was likable—all over MTV, all in the magazines, every guy wanted to be with her and every girl wanted to be like her.”
The storm has subsided, and with it, the servers’ attention. By now, they’re well-acclimatized to Electra—moving on, as fans so often do, to the next unknowable thing. Electra seems unbothered that in this café, at least, she’s yesterday’s news. She has survived and thrived this long because of a 30-year resolution to never take herself too seriously. And no matter what’s next, she’s not about to change course.
“This is me, this is it,” Electra continued, moving a hand up to her biggest, and most underrated asset: her heart. “Another step, another step.”
