For “Baywatch” star Alexandra Paul, what started as a frightening intrusion into her private life escalated into a 13-year nightmare.
Paul revealed to Fox News Digital the traumatic experience of being stalked by a woman who targeted her and her family, leading to her husband being struck by a car and over $60,000 in legal fees.
“The hardest part was not knowing when my husband and I were being watched and followed and worrying that she would hurt us,” Paul exclusively told Fox News Digital as she reflected on the emotional toll of living in constant fear.
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Paul, who played Lt. Stephanie Holden on the hit series in 1989, previously described her stalker as a “white European woman, conventionally attractive, neatly dressed and 20 years younger.”
The “Baywatch” star revealed her stalker had been fixated on her for more than a decade, and the cost was staggering, both financially and emotionally.
“I’ve spent more than $60,000 in legal fees, hiring private investigators and installing security systems to try and protect my house,” she said.
Although Paul thought the situation was initially innocent, she remembered a traumatic moment when the stalking took a turn for the worse.
“I place my grocery bags in the back seat and am starting my car to leave the parking lot in Santa Monica. Suddenly, the passenger door opens,” Paul recalled in the The Ankler.
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The moment she saw who had entered her car, she screamed in terror.
“I grab wildly at the door handle, leap out and start running to the store to beg for a security guard,” she recalled.
But her stalker wasn’t far behind.
“There are footsteps right behind me,” Paul added.
“I double back to my car and frantically lock the doors. There is banging on the window, urgent shouting. I cover my head, lean into the steering wheel, try not to look.”
Although Paul had sought restraining orders and had the FBI investigate her stalker, who was arrested, jailed and deported to Germany, the actress’s nightmare still showed no signs of ending.
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“Nothing has deterred her from her fixation on me. She always comes back.”
The stalker followed her everywhere, from the gym to her hiking trails, and even rented a bedroom just one block away from her home.
“She found me alone on hiking trails … she falsely told police my husband was beating me … she crashed his workplace to falsely assert he was a pedophile.”
Despite the common belief that female stalkers pose less of a physical threat than males, Paul pointed out that danger still exists.
“Female stalkers of public figures have the same likelihood to violence as their male counterparts, although when they do become violent, it’s not as dangerous to the victim.”
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But the toll didn’t stop with her own safety. Her husband was struck by a car driven by her stalker, and even her elderly mother was harassed at her home in another state.
“I am just so lucky to have had my husband at my side through all this, and I am so sorry how the stalker targeted him also,” Paul shared with Fox News Digital. “We are changed people because of this experience. We are both wary, and, out of habit, we still scan the street when we leave the house.”
The “Baywatch” alum has 263 pages of documentation from incidents with her stalker of more than 13 years, including files of legal documents, photos and reports from detectives she hired.
“[I’m] full of gratitude that this is now all over. It is terribly sad that it had to be because of her death, but public figure stalkers often never let go of their obsessions. So, perhaps that is the only way we could have been truly free.”
