There are few figures in Hollywood quite as tragic as Anna Nicole Smith. At first, she had a kind of meteoric rise in fame: almost overnight, she became a household name, and she was known for her bubbly personality and voluptuous body. Most of her early fame (some would say notoriety) came from her career as a Playboy model, and her nude body caught the eye of men all around the world. That included 89-year-old billionaire J. Howard Marshall, whom she married in 1994. His 1995 death was supposed to set Smith up for life, but legal drama kept the money away, and she later died in 2007 from a tragic drug overdose.
These details of Anna Nicole Smith’s life are relatively well-known. What you might not know is that she had a daughter, Dannielynn Birkhead, who is growing up to be the spitting image of her mother. And while the young woman didn’t get a chance to really know her mother in life, she has spent years trying to understand the woman who brought her into this world. What is Dannielynn’s story? How has she connected herself to her mother’s legacy, and what does she look like now? Keep reading to find out!
A baby battle (and an early victory)
Unfortunately, Dannielynn Birkhead was the center of some major family drama almost as soon as she was born. Her 20-year-old brother, Daniel, died from a drug overdose four days after she was born. The young girl was born with the name “Hannah Rose,” but Anna Nicole Smith changed the name to Dannielynn in order to honor her son. Tragically, the mother would suffer a similar fate, and Smith died of her own accidental drug overdose one year later.
After Smith died, young Dannielynn found herself at the center of some bitter family drama. There had to be a paternity test owing to the fact that Smith had been sleeping with Larry Birkhead around the same time that she was sleeping with a lawyer named Howard K. Stern. Complicating things even further is that Smith maintained that Stern was the father and even had his name on the birth certificate. Fortunately, a DNA test confirmed that Larry was the father, and he began raising young Dannielynn Birkhead on his own.
Returning to her mother’s past
Dannielynn Birkhead had a relatively normal life growing up, though she got quite the head start after being named the sole heir of Anna Nicole Smith’s $1 million estate. She also developed an ocular condition, but surgery fixed that. For the most part, she’s enjoyed a quiet life outside of Hollywood, bonding with her father. That bond has grown over time, and the two have some fun family rituals, including going to the Kentucky Derby every year. He also helped her land her first modeling gig. All of this bonding gave Dannielynn plenty of time to learn more about her father; as she got older, though, she wanted to learn more about her famous mother.
In 2020, when most were freaking out about COVID-19, Dannielynn Birkhead and her father traveled to Mexia, Texas, the hometown of Anna Nicole Smith. Their visit was captured by an episode of 20/20. It was a fruitful visit: teenage Dannielynn wanted to know more about her mom, and she got to visit one of Smith’s closest childhood friends, Jo McLemore. Between this and visiting her mother’s favorite places to hang out (like her old high school and a favorite restaurant), the teen was finally able to get some closure.
Anna Nicole Smith’s Daughter Is The Spitting Image Of Her Mother
