Will Surf Champ Kelly Slater Return to the Show? What We Know

Before Kelly Slater became the GOAT of surfing, he was Jimmy Slade in “Baywatch.”

And, like some of his co-stars, he wasn’t always crazy about being on the show.

For those who remember, in the series Kelly Slater’s character was linked to Nicole Eggert’s lifeguard character Summer Quinn and in real life dated co-star Pamela Anderson. In a Howie Games podcast episode in 2021, the 11-time world surfing champion told host Mark Howard that he hated being on “Baywatch” and mentioned his initial surprise of being cast after what he said was a terrible audition.

“After Baywatch: Moment in the Sun,” a documentary about the iconic ’90s series that features most of the cast, will be released on Hulu in August. Here’s what we know about “Baywatch,” “After Baywatch,” and Kelly Slater.

“Baywatch” was the Los Angeles lifeguard series that was part soap opera, part drama, part-“how do they save the day”-series that ruled TV and global pop culture for 11 seasons from 1989 to 2001. The beloved show inspired the short-lived spinoffs “Baywatch Hawaii” and “Baywatch Nights.”

Kelly Slater of Cocoa Beach, Florida, is considered the GOAT of surfing with 11 world titles. He was also the youngest (age 20 in 1992) and the oldest (age 39 in 2011) world surfing champion in history. He turned pro upon graduation from Cocoa Beach Jr./Sr. High, where he made straight As. He completed his master’s degree in criminal law at Sydney (Australia) University in 2004.

Other quick hits about Kelly Slater:

• He was part of a band (singing and ukulele) called The Surfers with fellow pro surfers Rob Machado and Peter King, and released a 1998 album, “Songs from the Pipe.”
• He appeared in “Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer,” published by Activision in 2002, and in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3, with a surfboard, of course.
• Kelly Slater competed in the X-Games in 2003 and 2004 and, not surprisingly, won two gold medals.
• There’s a nearly 10-foot statue of Kelly Slater in downtown Cocoa Beach, Florida, thanks to the efforts of artist Tasha Drazich. The must-see tourist attraction was dedicated in 2010.
• Kelly Slater has appeared in TV shows like “Baywatch,” Super Bowl commercials, and 40 films, including “Endless Summer II,” “Surf’s Up” and the HBO surfing documentary “Momentum Generation.”
• Kelly Slater has been awarded “Keys to the City” in Cocoa Beach, Florida; San Clemente, California; and Huntington Beach, California; not only for his surfing but for his sea conservation efforts.
• In 1997, he was an underwear model for Versace. GQ Magazine called him one of the 25 Coolest Athletes of All Time; Surfer Magazine called him the Greatest Surfer of All Time, and People Magazine named him as one of the “100 Most Beautiful People in the World.”

In “Baywatch,” Kelly Slater played young surfer Jimmy Slade on 26 episodes of the popular TV show, which launched him into the Hollywood mainstream. He was a series regular for a season and a recurring character in another.

In a 2021 “Howie Games” podcast episode with Mark Howard, a self-proclaimed “Baywatch” fanatic, Kelly Slater surprised the Australian sports broadcaster by saying, “I was embarrassed I was on the show. I wasn’t comfortable with it. I wanted to be a world champion surfer. I wasn’t trying to be a movie star or TV actor. … That wasn’t my goal in life.”

He called leaving the show a “coming-of-age moment” and admitted his mom was upset when he quit.

“It wasn’t like some giant hit. It maybe wasn’t in America what it was overseas,” Slater tells Howard. “Guys tuned in to try and see chicks on it, whatever.”

Though it was the No. 1 show in the world, “it wasn’t winning awards,” Slater said. His true goal was to become a surfing legend.

And quitting “Baywatch” allowed him to do that.

These are the stars of “Baywatch,” the long-running show about California lifeguards, that aired from 1989 to 2001 on NBC:

• David Hasselhoff
• Nicole Eggert
• David Charvet
• Pamela Anderson
• Kelly Slater
• Stephanie Holden
• Jason Momoa
• Carmen Electra
• Erika Eleniak
• Jeremy Jackson
• Gena Lee Nolin
• Brooke Burns
• Billy Warlock
• Michael Bergin
• Brandon Call
• Brande Roderick
• David Chokachi
• Krista Allen
• Parker Stevenson
• John Allen Nelson
• Simmone Jade Mackinnon
• Stacy Kamano
• Michael Newman
• Gregory Alan Williams
• Shawn Weatherly
• Peter Phelps
• Holly Gagnier
• Monte Markham
• Tom McTigue
• Richard Jaeckel
• Jaason Simmons
• Heather Campbell
• Jennifer Campbell
• Donna D’Errico
• Jose Solano
• Traci Bingham
• Nancy Valen
• Kelly Packard
• Angelica Bridges
• Marliece Andrada
• Mitzi Kapture
• Yasmine Bleeth

Following the success of “Knight Rider,” David Hasselhoff scored another iconic role: He played Lt. Mitch Buchannon in “Baywatch” for 11 seasons. Part of the show’s popularity was the pretty cast with perfect beach bodies, with the female lifeguards sporting red bathing suits that showed off a lot of thigh. The male lifeguards typically ran shirtless − showing off washboard abs − and sported red boardshorts.

The show glamorized “slow-mo running,” a topic that often came up between Chandler Bing and Joey Tribbiani on “Friends.” Superfans know Matthew Perry’s character had a crush on Summer Quinn, and he told Matt Leblanc’s Joey that he named one of the baby chicks “Yasmine” after Yasmine Bleeth.

More recently, former “Baywatch” star Nicole Eggert appeared on ABC’s “The Bachelor” with Clayton Echard in 2022. Eggert taught a group of “Bachelor” contestants some romantic lifeguard training. In the “Bachelor” episode, the ladies practiced their “slow-mo” running and performed CPR on a dummy.

In “After ‘Baywatch’: Moment in the Sun,” the stars will spill on what happened behind the scenes of the Los Angeles lifeguard series that ruled TV and global pop culture for 11 seasons from 1989 to 2001. Hulu announced the upcoming documentary series at the Television Critics Association summer press tour on July 10, 2024.

The four-part series will premiere on Aug. 28, 2024, featuring in-depth interviews with 35 cast members who wore the trademark red swimsuits − from Carmen Electra to David Hasselhoff − intimate home videos and a never-before-seen interview with Pamela Anderson. The fascination remains more than three decades later over the classic ’90s syndicated action drama featuring impossibly beautiful lifeguards saving lives on fantasy Southern California beaches.

“I still see a lot of articles that show me at age 19 in my red swimsuit and then me at 52 years old in the market, and the articles are like, ‘What happened to her?'” Nicole Eggert, 52, an executive producer of “After Baywatch,” told USA TODAY. “Let’s talk about what happened.”

Like former “Baywatch” cast member Kelly Slater, Eggert opened up about the “love-hate relationship” she had with the show, adding that it “has definitely evolved over the years. Now I love it and appreciate it.”

“But everyone has such a great story,” she said. “And there’s so much more than just their beauty and their time” on the show.

The TCA panel featured “Baywatch” stars Eggert, Electra (who played Lani McKenzie), Billy Warlock (Eddie Kramer), Alexandra Paul (Stephanie Holden), David Chokachi (Cody Madison), Jeremy Jackson (Hobie Buchannon), Traci Bingham (Jordan Tate) and Erika Eleniak (Shauni McClain).

Eggert told USA TODAY she had been struggling to make a “Baywatch” TV project more than five years ago. The project she originally had in mind morphed into the documentary series after meeting filmmaker Matthew Felker, who became the director and executive producer for “After Baywatch.”

Eggert said Hasselhoff, the “Baywatch” series executive producer and main star, fully participated in the Hulu project. Hasselhoff was the first call Eggert made before going forward with the documentary: “I thought if he will do it, then we have something here. That was my driving force in the beginning. And when he said, ‘Yeah, I’ll do it.’ It was like, ‘Let’s go!'”

Eggert revealed her battle with breast cancer in January 2024.

“Life is a roller coaster,” Eggert said. “This is a chance for people to reveal their own journey in their own words.”

According to his bio on IMDB.com, Kelly Slater of Cocoa Beach, Florida, will appear on the “Baywatch” documentary that will stream on Hulu in August 2024.

Kelly Slater, the GOAT of surfing from Cocoa Beach, Florida, is the biggest tie to “Baywatch” since he was a series regular and appeared in 26 episodes.

In the 2017 film adaptation of “Baywatch,” which stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Zac Efron, Alexandra Daddario, and Priyanka Chopras Jonas, scenes were filmed in Palm Beach County, Florida. The action-comedy movie kicked off the 2017 summer movie season with its U.S. premiere May 13, 2017, in Miami Beach. Original “Baywatch” cast members David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson appeared on the red carpet alongside The Rock, Efron, and Chopra Jonas.

Source: USA Today