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Nicole Eggert opened up in a new interview about the difficulties success on Baywatch brought
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Eggert said that even though Baywatch was the most-watched show worldwide, the cast was “ripped apart” in the press and derided as “Baywatch bimbos”
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Eggert said she ultimately left after two seasons when the show wasn’t what she signed up for
Nicole Eggert might have been on a hit TV show, but it wasn’t a dream come true.
Eggert, 53, opened up about her time on Baywatch on the May 12 episode of the Still Here Hollywood with Steve Kmetko podcast. Eggert joined Baywatch in season 3 as lifeguard Roberta “Summer” Quinn in 1992. Originally, she explained, she was meant to appear in a spin-off of Baywatch that was supposed to be “90210-esque, at the beach.”
Eggert and David Charvet, who also joined Baywatch, would be in it, and it would be “a high school at the beach training to be lifeguards,” she shared. But then Baywatch, through syndication, became the most popular television series in the world. “And they were like, ‘Spin-off nothing. This is what’s working and we want it to stay like this.’ “
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Nicole Eggert on ‘Baywatch’ in 1993
That’s why, after two seasons, Eggert “politely bowed out” because it wasn’t the show she’d thought she’d be making. But that’s when things got complicated.
“I had some crazy idea in my head that if I left the show, I would be able to detach myself from the stigma that the show had given all of us as actors, which is not a thing,” she said.
She most acutely felt the effects of the show in her dating life. “People have an idea of who you are, and that could be a number of things,” she explained. “And I think it’s harder for people to get to know you without this preconceived notion that they have going in.” Eggert said she’s “not like” any character she’s played, which throws people off.
Kmetko asked what being on the biggest show in the world was like. “Weird,” she admitted. The cast knew it was huge, but at the same time, “We were being ripped apart in the press,” she said. And that meant “the casting doors were not opening anymore.” Eggert felt like her “accomplished career” to that point no longer mattered.
“And then all of a sudden it was like we were called ‘Baywatch bimbos’ and these dumb bimbos on the beach and it’s T & A,” she remembered. “And then on the other hand, you have this number-one hit on your hand, and it’s like what a kerfuffle. What a mess.”
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Nicole Eggert on ‘Baywatch’ in 1993
Eggert also reflected in the episode about the show’s now-iconic slow motion running, which was added into the credits during the seasons she joined. “We were the guinea pigs, the first two seasons of this new look of Baywatch,” she said, and when they filmed the footage, “Nobody mentioned the slow-mo.”
Eggert heard the slow-mo happened when an editor was playing around and everyone loved it, but in real life, she was “running full speed.”
“And let me tell you something, full speed running in slow motion is not cute. Not cute at all,” she said, joking that she had “a lot of cringeworthy moments.”
Eggert returned to the world of Baywatch in 2003 for the TV movie Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding.
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Back in 2024, Eggert told PEOPLE that she was surprised by the realities of filming Baywatch from her very first day. “Oh my God, we’re going to be in a bathing suit all day every day?” she remembered thinking.
“All the girls worked out and were super tiny and fit and I was like ‘Whoops.’ And the one-piece bathing suits were not flattering. I didn’t want to wear it at all,” she said.
Because of her insecurities, she got breast implants during a break from the show when she was 18. “I regret it now, of course,” she said. “But when you have to put on that one-piece and it’s like you’re so flat that it’s like pleating — you got pleats across the front … You’re like, ‘What is this?’ Nothing you can do. You can’t stuff it with anything. You can’t do anything.”
Read the original article on People
