Larry Birkhead was cautiously hopeful that Netflix’s Anna Nicole Smith documentary would do justice to the late star — like different latest popular culture explorations reconsidering well-known girls. To say he is upset by the top result’s an understatement.
The day it was launched, Birkhead — who did not take part within the undertaking— referred to as the movie about his 16-year-old daughter’s mom a “cesspool” and he elaborated in an unique interview with Yahoo Entertainment. To him, it is one more factor exploiting the Guess and Playboy mannequin, who died from an unintended drug overdose in 2007, when it may have been an vital corrective to the file. In his eyes, it does not simply harm Anna Nicole, but additionally their daughter.
To be clear, Birkhead did not anticipate Anna Nicole’s life would someway be rewritten like a Disney-esque fantasy — the place all of a sudden the tabloid star’s struggles and scandals have been erased. However, a pitch despatched out by producers, which Yahoo has reviewed, promised the undertaking could be a “non-judgmental” story that might “restore dignity” to Smith, a sufferer of “society’s thirst for celebrity” tradition, and he feels they fell very, very brief. Birkhead additionally takes problem with some commentators within the movie, together with individuals who he says “never met me” making “false and defamatory” statements about not simply him however his relationship, which he felt “go unchallenged” by filmmakers.
“None of the people that commented on my relationship with Anna Nicole played a role in her life the entire 2.5 years I dated her,” he says.
Netflix did not reply to Yahoo Entertainment’s request for remark.
Those giving their takes embody Pol’ Atteu, a clothes designer for Anna Nicole, who has a longtime adverse historical past with Birkhead, opining about how Anna Nicole “couldn’t stand” Larry. Mitchell Olson, a actuality TV star who appeared on an episode of The Anna Nicole Show, advised information that Anna Nicole’s relationship with Birkhead was transactional — like he was there to father her child and don’t have any half in elevating it. Olson additionally claimed he had first-hand information that the couple by no means shared a bed room. Finally, Kevin Smith, a tabloid journalist, speculated {that a} “lightbulb went off” in Birkhead’s head when the photographer met Anna Nicole at a Kentucky Derby gala in May 2004, considering a relationship “could be quite lucrative.”
“One made a dress or two,” he says of Atteu. “One never even was in Anna’s home in the entire time I dated her” of Olson. “Another, that never met me is giving speculation about what he thought went through my head when I met Anna Nicole. This is not exactly high-end journalism.”
Birkhead continues, “A couple of the individuals speaking about me are retaliating due to the fact that we have had to police Anna Nicole’s stolen property over the years from so-called ‘friends.'” (Dannielynn inherited everything of her mom’s property, which as her guardian he oversees.)
For his half, Birkhead did hearken to the undertaking pitch by director Ursula Macfarlane, who beforehand made movies about Brigitte Bardot and Yoko Ono, and her group, hoping that the movie could be one narrative he’d be proud to indicate Dannielynn someday.
He says Macfarlane’s group made “multiple attempts to woo me by paying compliments to me about how ‘important’ my relationship with Anna would be to this documentary and what a ‘great father’ I am.”
Yahoo obtained a replica of such pitch — not despatched to Birkhead, however another person — about showing within the movie. It mentioned, “With heart and soul, this ambitious documentary will restore dignity and do justice to one of the most misunderstood American women of our time. We aim to present a non-judgemental portrait of Anna Nicole, telling a bigger story about our society’s thirst for celebrity, and the way in which we love beautiful young women, only to mistreat them at any and every slight misstep.”
However, critiques of the movie level to its personal exploitation, because the movie claims Anna Nicole’s father tried to have intercourse together with her when she was an grownup in addition to particulars a purported same-sex romance she had with a good friend. Variety‘s evaluate famous, “This exploration and would-be exoneration of Anna Nicole Smith’s tragic life becomes the kind of exploitation it seeks to condemn.” The New York Times‘s mentioned, “The solemn excavation of Smith’s life and death — she died at 39 of a drug overdose, in 2007 — ultimately brings the movie, despite Macfarlane’s well-meaning efforts, squarely into the territory of what it’s attempting to condemn: lurid voyeurism.”
Birkhead says it grew to become obvious to him as manufacturing progressed — and he grew to become conscious of who had signed on, realizing all of the gamers within the circus that was his ex-girlfriend’s life, and different elements — that he would not take part or share supplies from the property or his private archives for it. He says he then felt a shift within the narrative.
“It’s obvious that since we didn’t participate, the producer/director’s tone changed by then deciding to allow people to say false and defamatory things about me and my relationship with Anna and let these statements go unchallenged,” he says.
Further, he provides, “None of the producers reached out to me for comment, as promised, prior to the airing of these statements. These are the same individuals who put in writing that this project would be ‘something Dannielynn would be proud of.’ Dannielynn will never see this project, however our attorney will.”
When Yahoo beforehand spoke with Macfarlane in regards to the documentary and requested if Birkhead had been requested to look, she mentioned “of course,” however whereas they “had many conversations” which have been “very amicable … in the end, we couldn’t agree to the conditions that he had.”
Of these circumstances, Birkhead says, “My main issue was with the credibility of the participants and making sure after multiple promises from previous productions that some of these individuals wouldn’t be included.”
While Birkhead declines to delve into these or additional points with the movie, leaving that to his lawyer, he says he could not permit the narrative that he was just a few sperm donor go unchecked. He says he is by no means tried to painting his relationship with Anna Nicole as a fairytale, however it wasn’t in any respect what’s proven on-screen.
You know, it may have been this nice love story,” Birkhead says. “But to be sincere, I used to be in opposition to the chances, as a result of I had entourages and hangers-on and other people throughout Anna. So it was a tough kind factor. But it wasn’t like we have been Ike and Tina Turner. We have been not Prince Charming and Cinderella both. It was one in all these items the place it was in-between. We had our moments, We had a two-and-a half-year-relationship. To see folks attempt to cut back that down for a revenue or a acquire is simply ridiculous. Something that you just actually would not anticipate from a so-called high-end manufacturing on Netflix.”
He’s long thought about doing his own project, after so many negative narratives. That wasn’t a secret to the filmmakers for this doc either, as both he individually as a photographer and the estate possess tons of footage and photos and memorabilia of the iconic blonde bombshell.
“I sit up for, in a undertaking, having the ability to lay out all the archives,” Birkhead says. “An enormous quantity of the stuff has to do with my relationship with Anna that folks have by no means heard and seen. So it is going to be fascinating when folks truly see that and go, ‘Oh, my God, we have been suckered.'”
However, “First and foremost, it is extra vital for my daughter to see a few of these movies than it’s anyone else” because her mother has long been a punching bag, he says. “She was principally trashed and vilified [including in a documentary] that sought out to humanize her and to indicate a optimistic portrayal of a girl that was alleged to be misunderstood, in accordance with the director.”
He continues, “I believe they’ve failed their very own mission. Somewhere alongside the road, somebody aborted the precise mission and that is unlucky for Anna, her followers and my daughter.”
As for him seeing dollar signs when he met Anna Nicole — while working taking photographs at the Derby 19 years ago — Birkhead says she actually pursued him after they met. Footage from the Derby gala showed her obvious interest, but he says he was surprised to get an invite to photograph her at Camp Kindle, which helped children that were impacted by HIV, shortly after they met. He was touched by her charitable side, something not showcased in the Netflix documentary.
“So if something, Anna chased me and provided me a possibility regardless of the [film’s] claims that I used to be searching for alternative” to cash in, he says.
As for how he protects Dannielynn from all of this, he says, “Well, truthfully, she’s recognized since she was little that folks make up tales and lies about mother. We’ve walked previous magazines and so they’ve mentioned simply probably the most outlandish issues. So I’ve informed her early on that persons are incentivized by making up tales for various causes and that there are loads of unhealthy folks on the market that may say unhealthy issues about her mother.
“But also … it’s not really part of her everyday life,” says Birkhead, who has sheltered his daughter, taking her away from the limelight to develop up and making typically simply annual appearances on the derby gala. “She didn’t know her mother. She knows what people say about her mother. She also knows that people say bad things about her.”
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