Kira Pregiato Skips ‘Baywatch’ Reboot Audition As Fans Campaign For Her Casting

Credit: Kira Pregiato / Baywatch

When Baywatch first turned slow-motion beach runs into global spectacle, it didn’t just launch careers — it codified an aesthetic. Decades later, the franchise’s cultural undertow remains strong enough that even the whisper of a reboot can send the internet into a frenzy.

So when Fox Broadcasting Company announced a new iteration of the lifeguard drama — complete with an open casting call for fresh faces — thousands converged in signature red swimsuits, chasing their own cinematic sprint down the sand. According to the Los Angeles Times, roughly 2,000 hopefuls appeared, many dressed in homage to the franchise’s most iconic uniform, as casting teams searched for “new faces” with “authentic SoCal energy.”

But amid the open call spectacle, one name repeatedly surfaced online — despite never setting foot at the audition: Kira Pregiato.

“My DMs were genuinely out of control,” Pregiato told me. “People were tagging me in the casting announcement, sending me clips, like full-on campaigning for me to go. It was really sweet, honestly — but also kind of overwhelming.”

The comparisons fueling the fan push are not subtle. Long before algorithmic virality defined fame, Pamela Anderson sprinting across the California coastline became shorthand for ‘90s pop culture dominance. Pregiato’s audience sees a modern parallel.

“The biggest comparison I get is basically a modern-day Pamela Anderson,” she said. “My fans have literally been saying it forever, so when the reboot got announced, they kind of lost it.”

Pregiato’s rise reflects a distinctly 2020s blueprint. In 2024, a TikTok centered on cologne unexpectedly amassed more than 20 million views in 48 hours. She has described the moment as “surreal” — a digital inflection point that prompted her to leave college and commit to content creation full time. Today, she commands approximately 2.5 million followers on TikTok and nearly 1 million on Instagram, metrics that rival early cable-era celebrity reach in raw scale, if not format.

The aesthetic parallels haven’t gone unnoticed beyond her core fanbase. The Blast described her December 2025 red swimsuit post as “channeling old-school Pamela Anderson vibes with a modern-day twist.” Pregiato approaches the comparison with a mix of reverence and strategy.

“Pamela is iconic. She built an empire in a red one-piece,” she said. “If I ever get compared to that, even loosely, I’m not mad about it.”

Yet for all the momentum from her audience, Pregiato ultimately chose not to attend the casting call.

“I thought about it, genuinely,” she explained. “But I also didn’t want to just show up for a moment. If something like that ever came my way for real, I’d absolutely say yes. I just want it to feel right.”

That distinction — between chasing virality and building longevity — is increasingly central in today’s creator economy. The open call was designed to democratize access, offering aspiring talent what network executives described as a “rare opportunity” to audition for casting directors. But Pregiato’s hesitation suggests a deeper awareness: proximity to nostalgia doesn’t automatically translate to narrative control.

The reboot, which stars Stephen Amell as an adult Hobie Buchannon and welcomes back original cast member David Chokachi, is set to begin production in March on Venice Beach, with a premiere slated for the 2026–27 season. It’s a calculated bet on legacy IP at a time when networks are increasingly mining established brands to cut through streaming-era fragmentation.

Pregiato, meanwhile, is expanding beyond platform virality. She is exploring fashion and skincare ventures — categories that have become natural extensions for digital-first personalities seeking ownership rather than endorsement. Television, she admits, isn’t off the table.

“I’m not ruling anything out,” she said. “But I don’t need a red swimsuit to make waves. I’ve been doing that.”

In an era where fame can be engineered overnight but sustained relevance requires discipline, Pregiato’s decision not to sprint toward the shoreline may be less about hesitation and more about timing. The beach will still be there. The question is whether the next cultural lifeguard needs to run at all — or simply know when to stand still and let the tide come in.