Anna Nicole Smith’s baby girl ALL GROWN UP!
Dannielynn’s on a quest to discover the truth about her famous mother
Dannielynn Birkhead was only five months old when her mother, the famous ’90s model Anna Nicole Smith, died of a drug overdose aged just 39.
In the latter years of her life, Anna Nicole, who courted controversy wherever she went, was a tabloid fixture. But by stark contrast, her 14-year-old daughter, who was raised by her photographer father Larry Birkhead, 48, has remained largely out of the spotlight. The father-daughter duo only pop up in the public eye once a year at the famous Kentucky Derby horse race.
Now, on the 14th anniversary of her mother’s death, the world is getting its first proper glimpse of a normal, teenage Dannielynn in a documentary for the US ABC’S 20/20 program. Together, Dannielynn and Larry embark on a road trip, to discover more about her tragic mother, who died on February 8, 2007.
At times, Anna Nicole’s life resembled a soap opera, with her outlandish exploits making her internationally famous. There was her marriage to 89-year-old Texan billionaire J Howard Marshall, who died 13 months later, allegedly after promising her a share of his riches. Then there was the court case that followed – the details of her bitter fight with his family over the money made headlines around the world.
In September 2006, she gave birth to Dannielynn, only to lose her 20-year-old son Daniel (from her first marriage to Billy Smith) to a drug overdose at her hospital bedside three days later.
As if that wasn’t dramatic enough, while all this was playing out, her personal lawyer Howard K Stern and Larry were duking it out, each claiming to be Dannielynn’s biological father. At one stage, even Zsa Zsa Gabor’s husband Frederic Prinz von Anhalt thought he might be the dad!
But Larry says he wanted Dannielynn – who is the spitting image of her mother as a young girl – to take part in the documentary so she could learn who her mother really was.
“Dannielynn’s a teenager now, and she doesn’t really know a ton of things about her mum,” Larry explains in the program. “Anna should be remembered as this largerthan-life figure who was really a caring, giving person, a beautiful lady who loved her fans and loved her family.”
‘Anna Nicole was really a caring, giving person’