Larry Birkhead is slamming the brand new Anna Nicole Smith doc.
Anna Nicole Smith: You Don’t Know Me dropped Tuesday on Netflix. Birkhead, who’s elevating the daughter he shared with Anna Nicole solo since her 2007 dying, declined to take part within the movie and referred to as it a “cesspool” in a stinging assertion.
“We declined to participate as I did not want my daughter in a overwhelmingly poorly reviewed cesspool of a project about her Mother, where some people were allowed to invent things and rewrite history,” Birkhead informed Entertainment Tonight on behalf of himself and 16-year-old Dannielynn. “I am looking forward to a true definitive Anna Nicole project where her truth can be heard from her own perspective and by those that truly knew her the best and not just another ‘wash, rinse and repeat’ Anna Nicole project. Anna truly deserved better and that day will come.” (Birkhead didn’t instantly reply to Yahoo Entertainment’s request for remark.)
Ursula Macfarlane, who directed the challenge described by Netflix as a “humanizing examination of the life, death and secrets of Vickie Lynn Hogan — better known as model and actress Anna Nicole Smith,” beforehand informed Yahoo Entertainment that she reached out to Birkhead to take part within the challenge as an “important” individual in Anna Nicole’s life. However, whereas they “had many conversations” which had been “very amicable … in the end, we couldn’t agree to the conditions that he had.”
Macfarlane says a similar thing in the press notes for the documentary. Netflix says there’s no new comment following Birkhead’s statement.
Birkhead has earned a largely favorable reputation over the years for raising Dannielynn mostly out of the spotlight, in his native Kentucky, after Anna Nicole’s accidental drug overdose at age 39. Prior to that, he publicly fought Anna Nicole for parental rights when she claimed he wasn’t the father and moved to the Bahamas with her attorney Howard K. Stern amid the circus that was the model’s final years. However, Birkhead was cast in a negative light by her friends — and others — who participated in the doc.
Kevin Smith, a tabloid journalist, claimed in the doc that Birkhead, a freelance celebrity photographer when he met Anna Nicole at a Kentucky Derby gala in May 2003, “knew already the ability of the movie star photos, in order quickly as he met Anna Nicole Smith the lightbulb went off above his head” and he realized being with her “might be fairly profitable.”
Former Survivor contestant Mitchell Olson, who was friends with the Playboy cover model, said he met Birkhead soon after. To him, the relationship seemed transactional, like the shutterbug would father the Trimspa spokeswoman’s baby and would move on. He claimed he visited Anna Nicole’s home when they were trying to conceive and Birkhead “wasn’t staying in her room. He kinda had his personal room.”
Olson claimed he was privy to the details of the person Anna Nicole was looking for in a baby daddy and it included someone who would not get visitation rights, be paid money or be able to legally claim the child as his. He said, “There had been some fairly perimeters round her having a baby with someone, so I figured he was on that very same web page.”
Not long after, Anna Nicole made her infamous pregnancy announcement. It’s unclear when, but behind the scenes, Anna Nicole started telling people Stern was the dad.
Bonnie Gayle, the sister of Stern, is in the film and claimed Anna Nicole sent her an email saying, “Guess what?! You’re going to be an aunt.” Gayle said her parents were also told the news, and were shocked, though, again, it’s unclear when exactly this was.
Olson says Anna Nicole told Stern, “‘You may be the daddy. We’ll do that collectively!,'” adding that it “made good sense” she would raise the child with her lawyer/friend,” calling it “the ultimate storyline” for tabloid-obsessed Anna Nicole.
However, it was clear Birkhead wasn’t going to let it occur. Olson recalled Anna Nicole sending him an AOL on the spot message, writing, “F***. F***. F****. The guy is trying to get custody. He’s very mean. He has always wanted a name for himself off m. Well, he got it.” He added that it was “really clear that Anna Nicole did not want to share custody… She just wanted the child — no strings attached.”
Pol’ Atteu, Anna Nicole’s good friend and star of Prime’s Gown and Out In Beverly Hills, stated, “Anna never wanted anything from Larry. Anna wanted Larry to leave her alone. The truth is: She couldn’t stand him.”
Anna Nicole’s subsequent transfer was to jet off to the Bahamas, the place it will be tough for Birkhead to get the child. She gave delivery to a child woman — to be named Hannah Rose Marshall Stern — on Sept. 7, 2006. However, Anna Nicole’s 20-year-old son Daniel died of an unintentional overdose whereas visiting them within the hospital. The child’s title was then modified to Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern.
Birkhead waged a paternity battle. Anna Nicole died of an unintentional drug overdose herself in February 2007 because the combat was underway. A DNA take a look at proved Birkhead was the daddy, he took custody and legally gave her his final title.
It’s unclear what the situations had been that prevented Birkhead from showing within the doc. It might be that he needed a consulting producer credit score, as he acquired for 2 ABC News tasks on Smith (Tragic Beauty: Anna Nicole Smith in 2021 and Anna Nicole Smith: Tenth Anniversary in 2017) or possibly they failed to come back to phrases on cost for any of his pictures that probably would been licensed for the movie. He additionally could have needed a say in who gave commentary within the movie.
In the ABC News tasks, Birkhead, who has stated he dated Anna Nicole from August 2005 to February 2006, talked about their relationship, making it clear it was sophisticated, but in addition that he did not merely signal on as a sperm donor.
“No one ever knew one time that I was her boyfriend,” he stated in 2017. “The complete time we dated, in the event you have a look at all of the video, I’m within the again carrying my digicam bag … she didn’t need me within the highlight.” He went on to call his ex “somewhat bit controlling,” comparing their relationship to the 1989 movie The War of the Roses, but said when he once had enough and threatened to leave, “She stated, ‘If you go and pack, you’re going to be feeling actually silly as a result of’… and she or he took my hand and she or he put it on her abdomen, and she or he stated, ‘Because we’ll have a child.'”
However, the turmoil continued during the pregnancy, blowing up when Birkhead expressed concern about all the prescribed painkillers she was taking and whether it impacted the unborn baby. That led the five-month pregnant Anna Nicole to take off to the Bahamas and ice out Birkhead, he said. At Anna Nicole’s time of death, she had been prescribed 1,500 pills, including methadone, in one month period.
Birkhead, now a real estate investor, and Dannielynn step out only about once a year to attend the same Kentucky Derby party at which he met Anna Nicole. He’s said she has show no interest in modeling, after once posing for Guess Kids in 2013 as a tribute to her mom, and is just focused on homework and friends. She’s started to tour colleges. Larry has a storage space filled with Anna Nicole memorabilia that he’s kept for his daughter, showing it to her in footage that aired on 20/20.
Birkhead has kept the narrative about the late star positive for his child. Marking the anniversary of Anna Nicole’s death last year, he posted on social media, calling his ex “really one in every of a form.” He wrote that while she “struggled for love and acceptance” during her life, her “love is alive nonetheless to this present day, within the type of a very one in every of a form teenager with her Mom’s smile, magnificence and braveness… We love you Anna Nicole.”
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