Anna Nicoles Smith’s daughter has grown up and she is the spitting image of her mom
At the peak of her career, Anna Nicole Smith was one of the most recognized people globally, and the newspapers couldn’t get enough of her. For her part, Anna seemed to love the attention.
“I love the paparazzi. They take pictures, and I just smile away. I’ve always liked the attention. I didn’t get very much growing up, and I always wanted to be, you know, noticed,” she once told the Washington Post.
But of course, the life of a mega celebrity had its dark sides.
Her high-profile relationship with petroleum tycoon J. Howard Marshall was the beginning of her downfall. The 63-year-old age difference between Anna and her elderly husband raised many eyebrows – a lot of people were of the belief that Anna was only interested in Marshall because of his fortune.
The couple married in 1994, but just six months after the ceremony, Marshall became ill. He died in 1995 at the age of 90. The loss took a heavy toll on Anna.
A photograph of Anna Nicole Smith and J. Howard Marshall II sits next to Marshall’s casket. (Photo by Greg Smith/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
”After my husband passed, it was really, really hard on me,” Smith told “20/20” in 2000.
”He knew me when I was nobody and that’s what people don’t understand, and I don’t wanna be called a gold digger because I’m not. I could’ve married him a week after we met, or two weeks after we met. I could’ve married him years before, and I didn’t. I didn’t. I went out and I made something of myself.”
In the following years, Anna spent a lot of her time in the courtroom. She fought with Marshall’s family over her husband’s will. The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2006.
Anna Nicole died of an overdose in 2007, but just a few months before that she had given birth to her daughter Dannielynn. Dannielynn was born in New Providence, the Bahamas and Anna announced her pregnancy in a video on her website.
Unfortunately, Anna would never see her daughter grow up.
In the wake of her famous mother’s death, Dannielynn quickly became one of the most talked-about children in the world. Her upbringing was surrounded by drama and speculation.
Initially, several men claimed to be the girl’s dad and a court eventually ordered a paternity test that revealed that Anna Nicole’s boyfriend, Larry Birkhead, was in fact Dannielynn’s dad.
“I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I told you so. I’m the father. My baby’s going to be coming home pretty soon,” Larry told reporters outside the courthouse in Nassau, the Bahamas, in 2007.
Many worried about the future of the little girl as there are far too many examples of celebrity children who go down the wrong track, having to put up with a life they didn’t ask for.
