PAMELA ANDERSON'S tempestuous romance with rapper Kid Rock has hit the skids. The former Baywatch beauty broke off their six-week engagement following a brutal two-day fight.

The unlucky-in-love blonde is telling friends that Rock left her no choice after he publicly humiliated her.

But now the pair are talking in a desperate bid to patch up the rocky relationship, friends say.

The breaking point for the busty V.I.P. star came when the music bad boy, who had been on a drinking binge, got nasty and called her a bad mother in front of a roomful of celebrity friends, sources say.

"Pam is devastated. She thought she had finally met the man of her dreams, but now she fears he could turn out to be a nightmare," a friend tells Star.

The feuding began May 21 when Rock - whose real name is Bob Ritchie - began verbally browbeating his lover of more than a year.

"Bob was on a real tear," says one close pal. "They were hanging out at her Malibu home and he was going off on her about how she couldn't do anything right.

"He even told her to her face she was 'a joke in Hollywood.'"

The next day, May 22, the hard-partying couple attended The Academy of Country Music Awards in Los Angeles.

Insiders say the woozy pair put on forced smiles at the awards show where Rock, 31, performed onstage with Hank Williams Jr.

"He'd been on a two-day drinking binge - Budweiser, Jack Daniel's, Jim Beam, you name it," the pal reveals.

"His state alternated between being glassy-eyed, and intensely alert and aggressive. Poor Pam got hit by a hurricane."

The final straw came late that night at a post-ceremony bash.

"He started shouting that Pam was a bad mom and that sent her into complete shock. Anyone could see she was very upset and crying," says a source.

Rock crossed the line when, according to a source, he blurted out that maybe he should testify for her ex Tommy Lee, 39, in his bitter custody battle with Anderson for sons Brandon, 6, and Dylan, 4.

"That cut her deeply where it hurts most, with her kids," says the source. "Pam tried to walk away, but he grabbed her arm and spun her around. It was terrible to watch someone treat a woman like that."

With tears in her eyes, she told him it was over and left, say pals.

Even though Anderson was the one who pulled the plug on the relationship, sources say Kid Rock was himself having doubts himself and that she merely beat him to the punch.

"He was beginning to think it was time to move on," a pal tells Star. "The thrill of being with the hottest chick in Hollywood had worn off somewhat."

But it was more than just boredom - he was secretly consumed with rage, sources say.

The rocker, who hails from Romeo, Mich., a suburb of Detroit, stuck by Pam after she admitted having hepatitis C in March. He even proposed to her in the Nevada desert shortly afterward.

But she broke his heart on the night of the proposal, say friends. He was furious that she accepted his ring, but insisted on waiting until next summer to walk down the aisle.

"Kid wanted to get married that night," confides a friend.

He claimed to understand why she wanted to wait, given her stormy past and current problems with Lee. "But down deep, he was real angry," says the friend. "As the days wore on he convinced himself she wasn't 'the one.' Then he began to look for a way out of the engagement."

That came in the form of his drunken tirade. The day of the country music awards, the couple went to a luncheon at the Universal Hilton ballroom. "Pam looked sullen and uncomfortable," says a source who sat near them. "Kid was in a world of his own, pounding down drink after drink."

Problems had also been brewing because Rock wanted her to spend more time with him in his hometown. "The Detroit thing was never going to happen," says a friend. "Pam doesn't mind visiting once in a while, but it isn't her home and his friends aren't her type."

Days after the fight, Pam was spotted out around L.A., looking depressed and without her engagement ring. But later the two got in touch, meeting at her Malibu home in a bid to patch up their difficulties.

"They have started talking again," says a friend. "But the sheer joy has gone from their relationship. How long any reconciliation can last is anybody's guess.