Pamela Anderson, the former Baywatch star and famous Playboy Playmate, has filed to annul her marriage of two months to movie producer Rick Salomon. According to court documents, Anderson cited “fraud” as the reason for the annulment.

Private Judge

Anderson elected to have her divorce case heard by a retired judge instead of in the Los Angeles Superior Court. People usually choose to use a private judge in order to keep their divorce confidential. In a standard divorce hearing, members of the public and other litigants are in the courtroom when your case is heard. On top of that – and many people do not realize this – all papers filed in Court become public record; for celebrities this is often worth avoiding by working with a private judge. Anyone can have their case heard by a private judge in order to keep it confidential, but private judges are expensive, sometimes charging as much as $10,000 – $50,000 up front, and then hundreds of dollars per hour beyond the initial retainer.

Annulment

Although the term annulment is thrown around a lot in popular media, obtaining an annulment is not easy and the court does not grant them often. An annulment is a request from the Court to “undo” the marriage as if it never happened. When you are granted an annulment you are not “divorced” – rather it makes it as if the parties were never married. One of the grounds for an annulment is fraud, which means that a party was misled by the other party about something fundamental to the marriage. For example, if one party finds out after marriage that the other party really does not want children (even though they previously represented that they did) that may constitute fraud and be grounds for an annulment. Another important repercussion of an annulment is that no spousal support (alimony) is awarded, because the marriage essentially never legally happened.

Anderson cited “fraud” as her basis for annulment. It is likely that we will not find out the details about Anderson’s claim of fraud since her case is now before a private judge, but if Anderson did not have a premarital agreement with Salomon, she may very well be seeking an annulment in order to avoid paying spousal support.