Audiences remember Carmen Electra as a textbook bombshell when she slipped into the iconic red Baywatch bathing suit in 1997, but the actress recalls feeling very differently due to behind-the-scenes conversations about her weight.

"Body image was a big thing. I definitely went through that," Electra, 52, exclusively told Us Weekly at the Monday, August 26, premiere of After Baywatch: Moment in the Sun premiere. "But when I look back, I love my body and you can't [criticize like] that these days."

The actress joined as Lani McKenzie in season 8, which premiered in 1997, and she wasn't thrown by the criticism after her upbringing as a dancer. "I auditioned for the School for Performing Arts when I was a little girl, and ballet was my major and there's very strict rules about it," she told Us while on the red carpet in California at The Bungalow Santa Monica. "We had to stay on our pointe shoes even if our toes were bleeding. The ideal body was straight up and down. So it didn't really phase me when they were saying [on Baywatch], 'You need to lose weight,' at that point."

Still, Electra says that she actually liked her body and is happy that attitudes have changed. "When I look back, I'm like, 'No, I had some curves and I'm proud of that.' You can't do [body critiques] anymore. You cannot. So we got through those moments in this business."

"I actually stole mine," she admitted to Us. "I had finally gotten my own. Like, our suits didn't come in on time, so we were wearing everyone else's, which was very iconic. I didn't mind it. I thought it was fun. And then, it was the last day, and they said, 'Leave them.' [But] I feel like most of us kept our suits."

She continued, "I still have the same rescue can and these ratchet flip-flops that -- I don't know why I kept those, but now it's framed. I have some really fun [magazine] covers we did, and it was just all of us girls on the cover. And that was cool. I've looked up to all these beautiful women."