Nicole Eggert is currently battling breast cancer
For "Baywatch" actress Nicole Eggert, stripping down to a bathing suit was neither desirable nor debatable.
In a candid interview, Eggert shared how the show's environment motivated her to get plastic surgery, a decision she now regrets.
Joining the cast for season three, Eggert remembered being stunned on her first day of filming. "Oh my God, we’re going to be in a bathing suit all day every day?" she told People magazine of her initial thoughts on set. "I was like, ‘Oh, s---,'" when she realized she hadn't auditioned for a spinoff series about high school kids, like she'd originally thought.
Nicole Eggert, David Hasselhoff, Alexandra Paul, David Charvet and Pamela Anderson on the beach in season three of "Baywatch," 1989-2001 (Everett Collection)
Eggert says she felt taken advantage of, her body on display for everyone to see. She compared herself to fellow cast members, including Pamela Anderson.
"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 of the iconic red swimsuit. "It just wasn’t what I signed up for. It was a totally different show and ballgame and not where I wanted to be."
She would ultimately leave the show after two seasons, but not before making a big change.
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Eggert starred as Summer Quinn for two seasons of "Baywatch." Pamela Anderson famously played C.J. Parker for five seasons. (Fotos International/Getty Images)
While on break from shooting "Baywatch," Eggert, then 18, decided to go under the knife. "I regret it now, of course," she explained, of getting breast implants. "I look at all these younger girls doing it and think, ‘God, leave your bodies alone!’ 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."
With time, Eggert started to question why she'd really gone through with the procedure. "It was a stupid 18-year-old decision," she admitted to People.
Since getting the initial implants, Eggert has had several breast augmentation surgeries. In 2015, she appeared on an episode of "Botched," wanting a breast reduction.
Eggert says she regrets getting breast implants at 18. (Fotos International/Getty Images)
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Earlier this month, the actress sadly announced she'd been diagnosed with breast cancer.
Eggert first felt pain in her breast and gained 25 pounds within three months. Believing them to be symptoms of menopause, she was surprised to locate a lump during a self-exam in October. "It really was throbbing and hurting," she previously told People. "I immediately went to my general practitioner, and she told me I had to immediately go get it looked at. But the problem was I just couldn't get an appointment. Everything was booked. So I had to wait until the end of November to get it done."
Results later showed that she had stage 2 cribriform carcinoma breast cancer. Both of Eggert's parents had cancer.
Eggert first attributed her symptoms to menopause, before conducting a self-exam on herself and finding a lump. (Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images)
"I can definitely feel it," the "Charles in Charge" star added. "It's there. It needs to be taken out. So it's just a matter of, do I have to do treatment before the surgery or can they perform the surgery and then I do the treatment after?"
Eggert says she is waiting to see when she can begin both chemotherapy and radiation, adding she does not know if the cancer has metastasized. "I have panics where I'm like, just get this out of me," she told People about her condition. "You sit there and it's in you and you're like, every second that passes and it's inside of me, it's growing, and you're just like, you just want it out."
Caroline Thayer is an entertainment writer for Fox News Digital. Follow Caroline Thayer on Twitter at @carolinejthayer. Story tips can be sent to
