Brandon Thomas Lee on Fame: "I Wasn't Really Into Working in the Entertainment Industry"

Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson's son Brandon Thomas Lee was wary of entering the spotlight for a long time, but his feelings likely changed once his career as a model and actor started to take off. Having signed with Next Management around six years ago, Brandon has walked for leading fashion houses like Dolce & Gabbana and Philipp Plein. Brandon got one of his first acting breaks in 2018, with a role in Ian Samuels's Sierra Burgess Is a Loser. So, what does Brandon do for a living? 

At first, Brandon likely had a few precautions about following in the footsteps of his parents, '90s it-couple Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson. As he told Interview, he and his brother, Dylan Jagger Lee, learned about how paparazzi operate at a young age. 

"I remember one day asking my mom, 'Hey, why does everybody take photos of us?' And she said, 'Oh, they do that to everybody.'" Brandon told Interview. "Then, I remember being with one of my friends' families when I was, like, 10, and we walked into dinner somewhere, and I said to them, 'Hey, why does nobody take photos of you guys?'" 

Brandon didn't plan on becoming a model, and it's only when he had a brief encounter with a modeling scout while accompanying his mom, Pamela, to a meeting, that he began to change his mind. As he told Grazia, he signed with Next Management after accidentally bumping into an agent on his way back from the bathroom. 

"'Are you a model? Why are you here? Does anyone represent you?' she asked," Brandon recalled. "I replied, 'No. I'm not a model. At all. And I don't want to be.' I wasn't really into working in the entertainment industry — well not modeling per se — and I never really thought of myself as having the model look. I always thought I wanted to be in film and models had to be super tall and good-looking." 

Brandon's acting career kicked off a few years later. In 2018, he got cast in Tales, a hit TV show with Bella Thorne, David Dunston, and Alzie Williams. He played Duke Orsino in an episode of Acting for a Cause, titled "Twelfth Night," and Billy Ryan in Blackjack: The Jackie Ryan Story. Brandon's latest projects include Cosmic Sin, a movie directed by Edward Drake, and Zero Road, a drama by Chance Sanchez. 

Although Brandon has already amassed a more than impressive list of acting credits, he only started to garner more media attention once he agreed to star on The Hills: New Beginnings, the reboot of the epoch-making reality TV show that first premiered on MTV in 2006. Still, as he let slip in an interview with Teen Vogue, he doesn't know who Lauren Conrad is. 

Brandon is yet to disclose how much his assets come to. According to outlets like Nicki Swift, he might have as much as $1 million. Tommy Lee's net worth is estimated to be somewhere between $70–$75 million, while Pamela Anderson reportedly has around $12–20 million. Regardless, Brandon maintains that he and his brother haven't asked for money from their parents since they were in high school. 

"There are a lot of misconceptions about the way we were raised — that we're spoiled, or that we were given everything," Brandon told Interview. "But our friends can back this up: Dylan and I haven't taken a dollar from our parents since we were in high school."