The Tragic Rise And Fall Of Beauty
Once upon a time, Anna Nicole Smith had it all. Rising from a troubled past, Smith became the face of a generation. In the early 90s, everywhere you looked, you found Anna Nicole Smith staring back at you with a sultry gaze.
It seemed that she was set to follow in the footsteps of Marilyn Monroe or Pamela Anderson. However, that fame quickly deteriorated, and what followed was a tale that is as tragic as it is genuinely bizarre. 
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1. She Was Born Into Adversity
In the beginning, it seemed as if Anna Nicole Smith was set up to live a life as ordinary as any of her neighbors in Houston, Texas. Even her name lent itself to obscurity. Born Vickie Lynn Hogan in 1967, there was nothing to suggest that young Smith was destined to tread an extraordinary path. In fact, by the time she was in her teens, her life was more difficult than most.
2. She Threw Her Life Away
Domestic adversity threw a dark cloud over Smith's childhood. Her parents eventually separated, and Smith relocated to Mexia, Texas with her mother. However, she did not have a typical childhood. Though she went to high school, she would not graduate with the rest of her class. In April 1985, she threw her entire future away in the name of love.
3. She Married Young
Anna Nicole Smith was 17 when she married her co-worker, Billy Wayne Smith. Billy Wayne was only 16 at the time—the pair working together at Jim’s Krispy Fried Chicken. If Smith ever held any dreams of a charmed life, they dissolved quickly. Approximately nine months after their marriage, the couple welcomed a son, Daniel Wayne Smith, and their lives were never the same again.
4. She Struggled To Get By
Any sweetness that once existed between Smith and Billy could not survive life with a newborn child. Smith and Billy separated a year after Daniel was born, though it would be several years before they properly divorced. During this time, Smith worked thankless jobs—from Wal-Mart checkout girl to “gentlemen’s” clubs—to make ends meet. It was because of these very clubs that Smith's life would take a shocking turn.
5. She Made The Right Connections
In October 1991, Smith was working at the Houston “gentlemen’s” club when she met J Howard Marshall. Marshall was a petroleum tycoon who was worth millions. He was also 86 years old when he took a fancy to the then-24 Smith. It was also around this time that an unnamed boyfriend (who may or may not have been Marshall) encouraged her to take a chance on a famous magazine.
6. She Took A Chance
Smith reported being nervous when she auditioned for Playboy. Although she posed without any clothes, she claimed that it didn't come naturally and that she strove to remain modest despite being exposed. Regardless, it was this audition that launched her career. In March of 1992, she appeared on the cover of the magazine, and in May of that year, she was the centerfold. But this was only the beginning.
7. She Had A Captivating Look
Smith owed much of her success to timing. Guess Jeans launched the career of Claudia Schiffer only a few years earlier. As Smith began to get recognition for her work in Playboy, Schiffer had moved on, and Guess needed a new spokesperson: Smith got the job. Her alluring black-and-white photographs launched Guess Jeans in 1992, and Smith officially adopted her stage name, Anna Nicole. Finally, “Anna Nicole” felt like somebody.
8. Her Image Was Everywhere
Following her success with Playboy and the Guess campaign, Smith became an international name. H&M painted her image across Norway and Sweden for a campaign in 1993. It was also in this year that Smith was named “Playmate of the Year” for Playboy, and finally made her divorce from Billy Wayne Smith official.
With all of her success, she left her old life behind. It was time for something new.
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9. She Made An Interesting Choice
During her meteoric rise to fame, Smith had remained close with her rich companion, J Howard Marshall. Despite the 63-year age difference between them, something had blossomed between Smith and Marshall. They married in June of 1994. However, the union caused some people to whisper.
10. She Fought For Her Love
Following her marriage to Marshall, Smith had to spend much of her time denying accusations that she had married him for the money. After all, the man was 89 years old when they married and bound to a wheelchair. Even his two sons were nearly 30 years her senior. Smith insisted that she married Marshall for love, and was willing to put her money where her mouth was.
11. She Was Misrepresented
Not quite two months following her wedding to Marshall, New York magazine featured Smith on their cover along with a tagline: “White Trash Nation”. The piece did not leave Smith smiling. In October of that year, she filed a lawsuit against the company, stating they’d used the photo without her permission. They settled the matter quietly, but Smith’s life was about to implode in a far more spectacular fashion.
12. She Was Left Out
Smith’s second marriage lasted less time than her first. In August of 1995, approximately 13 months after they married, J Howard Marshall passed—and Smith’s life was never the same again. Whether she married Marshall for his money or not, it was clear once he had passed, Smith felt his estate owed her a portion—a fee that neither his will nor his family wanted to give her.
13. She Fought For Her Portion
When J Howard Marshall passed, his will made no mention of his very young wife. All of the money went to charity or his youngest son, E Pierce Marshall. Smith claimed that Marshall intended to leave her half of his estate and that Pierce had stopped his father from doing so. She used this as a premise to sue in Texas Probate Court to get what she felt they owed her. Things only got worse from there.
14. Her Case Got Complicated
These sorts of cases are not uncommon, particularly in situations in which a rich older man marries a significantly younger wife. It was likely expected that they could settle this matter easily enough in the Texas courts, and maybe they would have if it weren’t for Smith. But while fighting with her stepson for her share of the money, Smith had another problem on her hands.
15. She Became The Accused
You see, once Smith made it big, she began hiring nannies to help her with the task of raising her son, Daniel, entirely on her own. Back in 1994, her former nanny Maria Cerrato had filed a sexual harassment case against Smith, claiming that Smith would declare her love for her, and make aggressive advances towards her when she was intoxicated.
Cerrato won her case, and as a result, Smith declared bankruptcy in 1996. That’s when things began to fall apart.
16. She Lost It All
Smith filed for bankruptcy in California, making it a problem for the LA legal system. However, since she was still in a battle in Texas over her late husband’s estate, the California court had to take those potential assets into consideration. This caused a schism that would have disastrous consequences as two separate court systems deliberated over the same matter.
17. She Got Support
While the LA systems grappled with Smith’s bankruptcy case, Smith was busy making useful connections in her case regarding the Marshall estate—namely, Marshall’s older son, J Howard Marshall III. His father disowned Howard III some years earlier and left him out of the will. Smith and Howard III joined forces to get Pierce to relinquish what they each felt he owed them.
18. Her Love Life Revived
It was also during this time that Smith made another connection that would have a lasting impact on both her life and her legacy. In 1998, Howard Stern became a part of Smith’s counsel. His firm had been handling Smith’s modeling contracts previously, and during this period, Stern became co-counsel for her litigation in her fight for her half of the estate.
What started as professional, would quickly dissolve into pleasure, though not before things became a lot more complicated.
19. She Won Her Case
After four to five years of fighting and deliberation, the court systems were ready to start making some decisions, though none of them were going to help the situation. In 2000, the LA Bankruptcy Court declared that the estate owed Smith $449,754,134. However, this wasn’t the win that Smith thought it was.
20. She Lost Her Other Case
While LA decreed that they owed Smith around $400 million, the Houston court system concluded that Marshall’s original will was valid. Not only was Smith not owed anything, but they ordered her to pay Pierce’s legal fees, which at this point were over 1 million dollars. These rulings were in direct opposition to each other; it was now a matter for the federal court.
21. She Planned For Her Future
It was also around this time that Smith was beginning to make considerations for her future. In 2001, she prepared her will with an attorney in Los Angeles. Unsurprisingly, she left her entire estate to her son, Daniel. More surprising, she named Howard Stern the executor of the estate. It seemed that Smith and Stern had grown closer than anyone had imagined.
22. She Got On With Life
As the federal court continued to deliberate the matter of Smith’s various lawsuits, she continued to get on with her life and career. In 2002, she started her short-lived reality sitcom named after herself: The Anna Nicole Show. The show featured a stylized version of Smith’s life and had a host of recurring characters, including a familiar face: Her attorney, Howard Stern.
23. She Took What She Wanted
The details of Smith’s love life are murky and complicated. However, it was clear that she and Stern were becoming closer. Somewhere around this period, they began flirting with the idea of a relationship. Smith claimed she was the bolder one. As she described it, “I just kind of attacked him and that was it”. She claimed that she knew that she was in love the first time she kissed him. Though love and loyalty may have been two different things.
24. She Met Another Man
It was also around this time that another man came into Anna Nicole Smith’s life. Smith met Larry Birkhead in 2003. They both attended the Barnstable Brown Gala. Although Birkhead was a photographer and real estate investor, he remained a more private figure. The details of his relationship with Smith have faded with time, though it was clear that something existed between them.
However, her scandalous life continued to get in the way.
25. Her Case Got An Upgrade
Life may have been moving forward for Smith, but that did not mean that her legal troubles had ceased. They were only getting started. In 2002, the federal courts decreased the amount of money owed to Smith from $400 million to $88 million. Next, the matter fell to a three-judge panel in the appeals courts who voided that decision, stating that the federal courts did not have the power to overrule a probate court’s decision.
This took the matter to the Supreme Court.
26. She Got A Step Closer
Anna Nicole Smith would have to wait two years to know the fate of her lawsuit. They didn’t argue the case in front of the Supreme Court until February 2006, and their decision did not come until May. It ruled in Smith’s favor, though it did not grant her the money. It merely stated that Smith could fight for an appeal at the level of the federal court.
It’s hard to believe that such a big win could be eclipsed so completely. Yet, what happened next did exactly that.
27. She Faced Troubles
Rumors and accusations had been swirling for years that Smith was struggling with addiction. In April 2006, she was a patient at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in LA. As part of her stay there, a psychiatrist visited who had some grave predictions for Smith. She claimed that Smith not only had an addiction to prescription medications, but also had borderline personality disorder.
If this wasn’t bad enough, Smith had another bombshell to drop.
28. She Received Life And Loss
June 2006 was a devastating rollercoaster of a month for Anna Nicole Smith. On the first of the month, Smith posted a video to her website that announced that she was expecting a child. Only 20 days later, Marshall’s son Pierce passed; however, that didn’t end Smith’s legal battle. Pierce’s widow would fight on his behalf.
A fight Smith wouldn’t have time for thanks to the mayhem her pregnancy sparked.
29. Her Family Grew
On September 7, 2006, Anna Nicole Smith gave birth to a daughter in a hospital in the Bahamas. She was living with Howard Stern at the time, and they initially recorded the baby’s name as Hannah Rose Marshall Stern. It seemed that the small family was set for happiness. Tragedy, however, lurked far closer than anyone could anticipate.
30. Her Family Shrunk
Three days passed before Smith’s firstborn, Daniel, who was now twenty years old, visited. Daniel was the apple of his mother’s eye; however, what started as a heartwarming scene ended in tragedy. Daniel perished right there in the room, due to complications from the mix of substances he’d taken that day. The loss devastated Anna Nicole Smith.
31. She Couldn’t Go On
Since Daniel’s birth, Anna Nicole Smith had had few constants in her life. Her son had been the most important person in her life. She could not overcome his loss. Stern reported that Smith attempted to climb into her son’s coffin at the funeral, stating that Smith cried out, “If Daniel has to be buried, I want to be buried with him”. Despite the birth of her daughter, it seemed Smith did not want to go on without her son.
32. She Made A Vow
It seemed that Smith needed something to lift her out of her grief. Perhaps that is why she and Stern hosted a commitment ceremony on September 28th, just nine days after Daniel’s funeral. The ceremony was held in the Bahamas, and had all of the formality of a wedding, though it was not legally binding. It may also have been spurred by the drama that had begun circling the birth of “their” daughter.
33. She Changed Her Mind
As you may recall, Smith’s daughter was originally named Hannah Rose Marshall Stern. On October 9, 2006, they created a second birth certificate renaming her Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern. The name change was to honor Smith’s late son. However, this birth certificate also named Stern as Dannielynn’s father, a statement that someone had something to say about.
34. Her Past Came Back
Not long after the birth of Dannielynn another man came forward claiming to be her father. Remember Larry Birkhead, Smith’s other paramour from a few years earlier? Well, he believed that he was Dannielynn’s father, not Stern, and he was willing to fight for it. He filed a lawsuit over the matter, and a United States judge ordered DNA paternity tests. However, Smith, Stern, and Dannielynn were in the Bahamas.
35. She Sought Shelter
At some point in late 2006, Smith sought out permanent resident status to remain in the Bahamas. But it seemed that wherever Smith went, controversy followed. Shockingly, the immigration minister Shane Gibson—who granted Smith her permanent residency—was reportedly extremely close with Smith. According to local newspapers, Gibson had actually had an intimate relationship with Smith. The ensuing scandal ultimately led him to resign.
However, the reason for Smith seeking this shelter likely ran far deeper than simply liking the tropical Bahamas temperature.
36. She Avoided The Problem
For whatever reason, Smith wanted Stern to be the father of her child, whether he was or not. Most believe that Smith and Stern sought shelter in the Bahamas for one reason only: In the Bahamas, they could avoid the paternity testing that the United States would force them to take. This matter was already messy enough. It’s hard to believe that it was about to get worse.
37. She Was Found Too Late
On February 8, 2007, Smith returned to the States and was a guest at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida. After being found unresponsive in her room, Smith's nurse—the wife of her bodyguard—attempted to revive Smith through CPR. But it was already too late.
38. She Couldn’t Be Saved
Although Smith was taken to the hospital, she was beyond help. Following this tragedy, an investigation into her sudden passing began. At the time of her demise, Smith had eleven different prescriptions in her system; they ruled her loss accidental due to the combination of prescriptions that she had taken.
However, her passing only inflamed her existing drama.
39. Her Daughter’s Case Went On
Birkhead was still making a public campaign for paternity over Dannielynn. Once Smith had passed, he was all the more determined to prove that he was the father of Dannielynn and get custody of what he saw as his daughter. Now that Smith was gone, however, it seemed that he had even more competition.
40. She Found Another Man
On February 12, 2007, only four days after Smith’s passing, Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt decided to throw his hat into the paternity ring. Despite being married to Zsa Zsa Gabor, Prinz von Anhalt stated that he and Smith had had an affair that had lasted for a decade. Two days later, he began his appeal to gain a DNA test to test his paternity, and he wasn’t alone.
41. She Found Even More Men
Suddenly there was one more contender for the paternity of Dannielynn. Alexander Denk worked with Smith on her show The Anna Nicole Show, and became her bodyguard after that. At one point, he also made a public claim that he and Smith had had a physical relationship; he believed there was a chance that he could be Dannielynn’s father. Smith was gone, but she’d left behind a mess.
42. She Only Cared For Two
While Denk’s claims never went beyond speaking of it publicly, Prinz von Anhalt seemed more serious about involving himself in the matter. His attorney claimed that he took several lie-detector tests to prove that he believed he could be the father. Prinz von Anhalt even submitted DNA to an LA clinic despite never being involved in the case. In the end, the real question seemed to come down to “Stern or Birkhead”?
43. Her Fights Dragged On
After much drama and speculation circling the matter, the official proceedings regarding Dannielynn’s true father began on February 21, 2007, less than a month after Smith’s passing. The case only involved Stern and Birkhead. It would drag on for almost two months before an answer was announced, and the fate of poor Dannielynn was finally settled.
44. She Got Her Answers
In the end, after a long-contested battle, the answer came down to a simple question: Who shared DNA with Dannielynn? The answer was equally simple. Based on the results, there was a 99.9% probability that Birkhead was the child's biological father. Once the DNA proved that he was not the father, Stern gave up custody willingly.
Dannielynn’s name was officially changed for a third time to Dannielynn Hope Marshall Birkhead and she has remained with her father ever since. However, why did so many men care about one girl?
45. She Still Wanted Her Money
One of the reasons that Dannielynn’s paternity had become so hotly contested was likely because Smith’s battle over half of the Marshall estate carried on in the name of her daughter. Even though both of the original complainants had passed, the question of whether the Marshall estate owed money remained.
If “Smith” won, Dannielynn was going to be a very wealthy young girl.
46. She Didn’t Get Her Money
After the original Supreme Court ruling, the case returned to the federal court. It continued to be fought on behalf of Anna Nicole Smith’s estate even after she had passed. However, it would be a long fight. The court wouldn’t give another ruling until March 2010. At that point, the Court of Appeals voided the amendment that the estate owed Smith $88 million. Still, the fight didn’t end.
47. She Got Another Upgrade
Rather than resolving the matter once and for all, this ruling triggered another round of appeals and denials. In September of that same year, the case returned to the Supreme Court, this time ruling once and for all on whether Marshall’s estate owed Smith (now Dannielynn) any money. Three years after her passing, Smith’s battle continued.
48. Her Case Dragged On
It would take almost another year before the Supreme Court settled the matter. They finally gave a ruling on June 23, 2011. Cutting through the legalese, the decision amounted to a rejection of Smith’s pleas. The Marshall estate did not owe her, nor her descendants, any money, including the amount the bankruptcy court had awarded her 11 years ago. The matter was finally resolved—at least, it almost was.
49. She Was Finally Put To Rest
While this ruling ended Smith’s stake in the matter, there remained the heirs of her former partner in crime, J Howard Marshall III. That matter continued through 2017. As for Smith’s bankruptcy case, it was not officially closed until October 2022, which was more than 25 years after Smith had started it, and 15 years after Smith herself had passed.
50. She Was Known By Few
There is some question of whether anyone truly knew Anna Nicole Smith. Many of the men who were supposedly in love with her claim to know a side of her that no one else did. Now that she is gone, it is impossible to prove whether they are correct, or merely romanticizing what they once had.
However, what can be said is that Anna Nicole Smith led a difficult path through life. People can only hope that her daughter lives a life free of the adversity her mother faced.
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