The ‘Baywatch’ star tells PEOPLE why she kept her beloved red swimsuits — and why she continues to wear them for special occasions
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Traci Bingham‘s iconic red swimsuit is still in her closet and she’s been known to put it on for certain special occasions — especially Halloween.
Speaking exclusively to PEOPLE at the After Baywatch: Moment in the Sun premiere in Los Angeles back in August, the Baywatch alum, 56, revealed that she still has her red lifeguard one-piece from her time on the show.
“I do still have my one-piece,” she revealed, adding that she even framed the iconic swimsuit. “I think I was the first one to frame it, and I stole a few, and I didn’t just snag the red ones. I snagged the black ones too.”
Because she has more than one saved from her years on the NBC lifeguard drama, Bingham told PEOPLE she feels comfortable putting them on as a Halloween costume, for photo shoots and more.
“I try them on. I wear them for Halloween. I wear them for friends. I wear them for photo shoots,” she said.
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“Sometimes I wear them for — we don’t have those days when you feel like you’ve eaten too much and well, you probably, you look amazing, or you’ve gained or you lost weight. That’s kind of my gauge that I wear to show whether I need to lose or gain weight,” Bingham joked. “If it fits, great. If it doesn’t, then I’m in trouble. But who’s going to be that size small forever?”
Bingham appeared on Baywatch from 1996 to 1998, starring in seasons 7 and 8 as the kind-hearted Jordan Tate, best friend to Donna D’Errico‘s character Donna Marco.
Elsewhere in her conversation with PEOPLE, the actress reminisced about her big break — when she landed the role of Jordan back in the ’90s.
“It was a very long-winded, grueling process, but I did it,” she recalled of the audition process. “And when I booked it, I was in a room with all the producers, directors, writers, stylists — it was just crazy. And I was so nervous.”
When Bingham later received the call telling her the good news that she had been cast, it was an emotional moment for her. “I cried and then I screamed, and then I called my family, and then the mayor wanted to have a Traci Bingham parade,” she added.:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(516x0:518x2):format(webp)/traci-bingham-2-101124-a783f3a0270240ddaab6bf212663bba4.jpg)
“It was just this really big thing,” Bingham continued. “I knew at that point that I had made it, and I’d done something great being the youngest of seven children. It was very exciting for my family. It was a dream come true.”
For Bingham, becoming the first woman of color to sport an iconic red Baywatch bathing suit and appear as a main character in the hit series was one of her proudest moments.
“It was considered an all-white show, and you didn’t see people of color on that show. I mean, there was one other male, a person of color, but as far as a woman wearing that swimsuit, there wasn’t any,” she recalled.
“The NAACP, I had heard, came down on Baywatch that there weren’t any females of color on the show, lifeguards. And so they made changes,” Bingham continued. “It was a big movement and I’m just honored that I was able to be that person and to make that change.”
After Baywatch: Moment in the Sun — the four-part docuseries that features interviews with Bingham, Pamela Anderson, Nicole Eggert, Carmen Electra, Jeremy Jackson and David Hasselhoff — is streaming on Hulu now.