Pamela Anderson collects pop art to enhance her ''sexy life''.

The legendary Playboy pin-up has opened up on her passion for art collecting, especially the genre made famous by Andy Warhol and Ed Ruscha, and she buys all her pieces to display at her home, never as investments.

Speaking to the Financial Times, she said: ''Pop art is fearless and authentic. I can have long conversations about it until the sun comes up and always say that artists are the freedom fighters of the world ... I think artists have a responsibility to talk about the state of the world. They can't care what people think. There's all this politically correct stuff we have to dance around these days, and it's really refreshing to have people who'll speak out. It's about having a sense of humour too. Just recently someone sent me a picture with the words, 'Pamdemic... you can't flatten her curve.

''I have works by Ed Ruscha, Richard Prince and David LaChapelle ... I don't buy art as an investment. All my art is displayed. I really believe in sharing it ... I don't know, it's just part of living a sexy life. It's a little bit Wild Westy.

''I'd like to own a Warhol, maybe an Electric Chair, and maybe an Old Master, but I'm not a Rothschild.''

The former 'Baywatch' actress - who has inspired art works by the likes of Marc Quinn and Jeff Koons - is friends with a lot or artists who tell her that her celebrity status and blonde bombshell persona make her a living piece of performance art, and she has come to reappraise her Playboy covers as pop art.

Pamela - who is the creative director of the social media webcamming site Jasmin - added: ''I'm lucky to have a lot of good friends who are artists ... Richard Prince, Ed Ruscha, Jeff Koons - that's good company. And David LaChapelle and Sante D'Orazio. They tell me that every time I walk out the door it's performance art. You know, they kind of look at me as a living work of pop art, which is a great compliment. I've been asked if I think of the Playboy covers I did as pop art, and looking back, yeah, I think so.''