Original subtitles

I grew up poor. I had no money.

My family was poor.

There was things I wanted to do and couldn't.

Just, there's tons of things that I couldn't even mention,

and it is a Cinderella story to me.

♪♪

♪♪

Hey, everyone, I'm Hill Harper.

Anna Nicole Smith, high school dropout from a broken home,

a former stripper, a single mom,

but ultimately a billionaire's wife

and an international superstar.

Anna Nicole Smith reached larger-than-life fame,

but the mysteries and contradictions of her stormy

up-and-down life turned her into a tabloid obsession.

Build her up or tear her down.

Anna Nicole Smith was convinced she wouldn't make it to 40,

and tragically, she was right.

This is how it really happened.

King: Do you think there's sort of, like, a cloud

that hangs over you? Smith: Yes, a dark one.

A dark one? Yeah.

How old are you now?

27.

Casarez: Anna Nicole Smith really did live

the American dream,

but her life was like a roller coaster.

We watched as she struggled, and we rooted for her.

Banfield: She was extraordinarily beautiful.

She was reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe.

She was a cocktail of a lot of interesting things.

Hilton: She harkened back to a Jayne Mansfield

or a Marilyn Monroe,

and she brought glamour to nude modeling.

Velez-Mitchell: She really played up her Texas roots

in the 1993 "Playboy" centerfold video.

Anna Nicole Smith, Playmate of the Year.

What even led you to the "Playboy"?

How did that come about?

Well, I was just about out of going

to modeling agencies and schools

because they would always turn me down,

say I needed to darken my hair, lose weight.

"Playboy" was, like, my last chance

to really show myself, I guess.

So how did you do that?

I showed myself.

Hilton: There were so many girls that would pose for "Playboy."

None of them achieved the level of success that Anna Nicole did.

So the C.E.O. of Guess Jeans sees Anna Nicole Smith

on the cover of "Playboy" and says, "I want her."

Hilton: There were billboards of her all over the country,

and the photography was beautiful,

and it really opened a lot more doors for her,

and it legitimized her.

Atteu: I see somebody who loved the camera,

jumped right out of the shot

and came right inside your living room

to be able to tell you a story.

♪♪

Anna Nicole had a faulty foundation

and it comes into play.

Some of us are so flawed that it's hard

to keep everything together.

♪♪

It was sometime in the afternoon,

and reports started flooding in that Anna Nicole Smith

was found unconscious in her hotel room in Florida.

♪♪

[ Sirens wailing ]

Anderson: I was in my office in Los Angeles at CNN,

and I remember getting the news and just being stunned.

As the news reports continued to come in

and more details started coming in,

and then we hear that she had died.

At 2:49 this afternoon, we were advised by hospital personnel

that Anna Nicole Smith had died.

But we went on the air right away.

Wow, what a shocking and unbelievable day.

Pat, let me start with you

when you heard this news, what was your reaction?

We were just blown away here.

You know, A.J., it's kind of a yin and a yang.

I was shocked and then I was like, "I'm not surprised."

Anderson: This larger-than-life personality had died.

I thought, "How can that be? What has happened?"

This is CNN breaking news.

We begin right now, though,

with the passing of Anna Nicole Smith.

She died this afternoon.

She was 39 years old.

Some late video, police removing items from the rooms

at the Hard Rock Hotel in Hollywood, Florida,

where she was staying with a security guard and a nurse.

Casarez: When we learned she had died in the hotel room,

we were all wondering,

"Well, there must be foul play here."

Hilton: After Anna Nicole Smith died,

a lot of people had many questions,

"How did this happen?

Why did this happen?"

Anna Nicole's death was surrounded by mystery and shock,

but that was really how she led her life.

She was always surprising us.

We were always wondering, "What's next with Anna Nicole?"

The death of Anna Nicole Smith,

it's the number-one story around the world tonight.

John Zarrella, what's the mood down there in Hollywood?

Where is the body now?

Zarrella: Well, the body now has been taken

to the Broward County medical examiner's office,

the coroner's office.

And sometime tomorrow, we don't have a time yet,

they will begin the autopsy on Anna Nicole Smith.

King: Let's go back a little.

You had a tough background, didn't you?

Um...

You were raised in a --

your parents divorced shortly after you were born.

You never went beyond the eighth grade.

It was a tough childhood.

I had a time, tough time.

In Texas? In Texas.

♪♪

So big, beautiful, buxom Anna Nicole Smith

was actually born Vickie Lynn Hogan in Texas.

She was raised without a dad in a household

with five half siblings.

Her mother sent her away to live with her aunt

when she was just 14 years old.

Velez-Mitchell: And that is one of the most traumatic things

that can happen to a child, to feel rejected.

So I think that's where her big trauma began.

Hilton: The cards were definitely

not stacked in her favor.

She was 18 years old in 1986

when she had her first near-death drug overdose,

and this is according to her sister

who wrote a book aptly titled "Train Wreck."

Anna Nicole didn't make it through high school.

She dropped out and ultimately got a job

at a Jim's Krispy chicken restaurant.

Velez-Mitchell: And she meets Billy Smith,

who's the fry cook at the chicken joint.

They begin dating.

They ultimately get married, and the next year,

they have a son.

Anderson: There's talk of turmoil within the relationship.

They separated, and she moved on.

Casarez: She moved to Houston,

and she took baby Daniel with her.

She cared about protecting her son.

That was her first and foremost priority.

Casarez: The one person in Anna Nicole's life

that meant more to her than anyone was her son, Daniel.

He was born when she was only 19,

so they really grew up together.

You have a picture of your son... I do.

...which you brought along. Obviously, you're very proud.

Yes. How old is he?

He's 7 years old, and he's beautiful.

Velez-Mitchell: She headed to the big city of Houston,

where she saw a sign for a strip club and said,

"Hey, I can dance," and she became a stripper.

I tried working at other places,

and I just, I couldn't -- I couldn't make ends meet.

I tried Red Lobster.

I tried Walmart.

I tried all these places, and I couldn't make it.

I couldn't.

So I tried this gentlemen's club.

At first, she didn't really know

what she was doing as a stripper.

They gave her the bad hours, and she was clumsy

and big-boned and flat-chested.

And then another stripper took her under her wing

and groomed her,

and she became this incredible stripper,

and she learned that art of seduction.

She gets the platinum blond hair and the breast implants.

All of a sudden, she emerges as the Anna Nicole Smith

the world came to know, the bombshell.

Atteu: If she put on a nightie and she wanted to seduce you,

within a second, she can turn any gay man straight.

No questions.

Velez-Mitchell: In March of '92,

she was on the cover of "Playboy" magazine.

Now, apparently at first, she was a little shy about it,

but she quickly got over it, and by the next year,

she had been named "Playboy" Playmate of the Year.

-Anna. -Anna.

Anna, over here.

King: You sent them a picture of yourself nude?

I sent four Polaroids of me nude and --

They called the next morning.

They called me three days later.

Well, they flew me to Los Angeles three days later.

-She's a gorgeous lady. -Yes.

But there's also a special magic about her

and that magic is very much connected to,

I think, the fact that she looks

a lot like the glamour stars of the '30s, '40s, and '50s.

Is Marilyn Monroe your idol? Yes, she is.

Why? I don't know.

I just feel a connection there with her.

I just -- I don't know.

I just love her.

♪♪

Anna Nicole was beautiful, and she got great opportunities

with Guess and with H&M, and those shots are --

they seem classic.

They seem timeless now.

Hilton: She did a lot in the '90s.

She would constantly make the rounds.

She was on talk shows. She acted.

It was good being Anna Nicole Smith.

I'll never forget seeing Anna Nicole

in "Naked Gun 33 1/3."

What are you doing?

I'm, um, just contemplating my next move.

Your bishop is exposed.

It's these pants.

I usually wear a fuller cut.

You're all man.

I like that in my men.

You know what? She was a cartoon character.

She was like Jessica Rabbit, like,

just on the big screen, like no other.

It really is somebody who seemed to be in chronic emotional pain,

and no one ever really helped her.

King: With her life the way it was,

most assume some kind of drug problem.

Would that be found quickly if that were the cause?

Dr. Gupta: I think so.

I think that within a couple of weeks,

there's gonna be some answer as to what happened here,

whether it was a toxicology, overdose-type situation

or whether it was something that she had

a primary problem with her heart.

Anderson: Anna Nicole met this billionaire,

J. Howard Marshall, when she was working

as an exotic dancer in Houston.

King: He was in the bar.

You were performing.

Smith: Right.

I went over and met him,

and he had asked me to go to a lunch with him

the following day, and I did,

and that was the last time that I ever danced.

We've been together for many years.

How much older was he?

He was -- I was 23,

I believe, and he was 86.

♪♪

And he repeatedly asked her to marry him,

and she says no over and over again

for something like three years.

She said she wanted to make it on her own, and she did.

Ultimately, she gave in.

She agreed to marry J. Howard Marshall,

89 years old, and she's 26.

Strange, yes.

Why did you finally accept?

Because I promised him that I would marry him

after I made something of myself,

and I promised him,

and then it was time to do something,

and I wanted to have children.

You thought you owed it to him. I owed it to him.

I wanted kids, and it was time to get married.

But he couldn't have given you kids, could he?

We tried. You did?

We tried, but it didn't happen.

♪♪

Do I think Anna Nicole Smith was a gold-digger

with J. Howard Marshall?

Of course, I do. Come on.

Velez-Mitchell: What was Anna Nicole Smith's motivation

in marrying this billionaire?

She may have been a gold-digger who wanted his fortune.

I'm one of those people who is not instantly cynical

when you hear that billionaire marries young woman.

Hey, listen, good for him.

Did you realize that the public looked at this

as kind of, like, gold-digger?

Yes, I did.

How did that make you feel?

It made me feel very angry

because I wanted to make a name for myself

so that wouldn't happen,

and it hit me in the face anyway.

She told me he was the only one that ever loved her truly

with an open heart and never wanted anything from her.

I loved him for so much what he did for me and my son.

I mean, I just loved him so --

I've never had love like that before.

Anderson: The next thing you know,

he soon fell ill and died the next year.

♪♪

When he died, how old was he?

He was 90.

What did he die of?

Pneumonia.

When Howard Marshall died, Anna Nicole is now 28,

and she enters the Betty Ford,

and according to "People" magazine,

she is addicted to vicodin and alcohol.

There were reports that you were addicted,

that you were in rehab.

Right, true.

But they say I was in there for drugs,

but I was in there for painkillers.

You took what?

You got addicted to prescription painkillers?

I got addicted to pain pills and also alcohol

when my husband was dying and when he died.

♪♪

Banfield: When Howard Marshall died,

in the probate meetings,

they read the will, and Anna Nicole is not in it,

and neither is another one of his sons.

So they both contested.

Reporter: Anna Nicole Smith came back to Houston

armed with her legal team, not saying much as she arrived.

Anderson: She claimed that J. Howard Marshall

told her verbally because it wasn't in the will,

but that he told her verbally

that he was going to give her half his fortune,

and then ensued a court battle with his son pierce Marshall.

Banfield: Well, that just began decades of litigation,

the likes of which made it all the way

to the United States Supreme Court.

Reporter 2: Smith showed up just after lunch

to sit through the afternoon session.

I only want what my husband wanted me to have.

Anderson: Her claim has caused this case

to wind its way through the courts for years

when one would think

that it wouldn't make it past the first hearing.

Casarez: Throughout all of this, the good times, the bad times,

the ups and the downs,

the one person that was by her side was her son, Daniel.

He was her constant companion.

He was the light of her life.

Dr. Kapoor: Daniel was the focus of her life,

was really her, you know, one shining star

through all the heartbreak she'd had in her life.

Simpson: Daniel is a great kid.

Smart, really creative, really fun.

He was Anna's rock.

Daniel is the one that kept Anna grounded.

Atteu: Daniel gave her the backbone

or the drive for her

to be able to do everything that she did do.

She needed to medicate in order for her

to be able to get through the day, the night.

She never slept.

Welcome back to "How It Really Happened."

Anna Nicole Smith was a worldwide cult icon,

but her life was a roller-coaster ride

of extreme highs and lows.

Anna would enter rehab and get clean,

then go back to abusing drugs.

She was slammed by the press in one issue

only to be flattered in the next,

and in the never-ending court battles

over J. Howard Marshall's estate,

some rulings awarded her millions

only to be reversed on appeal.

But through all her struggles, Anna Nicole Smith never quit.

She kept fighting back with one special purpose in mind --

to make a better life for her son.

King: Was Mr. Marshall good to Daniel?

Smith: Absolutely.

So he was a good stepfather?

Oh, absolutely.

And how did Daniel handle all of this?

My life?

Yeah, your marriage to the older man.

How did he deal with it?

He dealt with it very well.

We've always stuck together.

Hilton: Even though life continually knocked her down,

she always found a way to get back up.

And then she'd get knocked down again, but she'd get back up.

♪♪

Anna Nicole's body definitely transformed through her life.

Trendy: She gained a lot of weight.

She was very reclusive living in North Hollywood.

A lot of people were saying very negative things about her.

She was, "If I'm gonna be fat, I'm gonna be fat,

and I'm gonna own it that I'm fat."

Casarez: Then she uses that weight gain to help make money,

modeling for Lane Bryant.

Simpson: One thing she always said to me is,

"It doesn't matter if they're saying something good,

they're saying something bad.

They're saying something."

Now, what are you gonna do?

I understand something is coming

that's gonna involve you.

Right.

I'm going to do "The Anna Nicole Show."

What kind of show is it gonna be?

All about me.

♪ Anna, Anna, Anna ♪

♪ Anna Nicole ♪

Velez-Mitchell: Anna Nicole's reality show

debuts on E! in 2002, and it's a stupendous hit.

Meow.

Chop!

Visually, she looked very different.

I wanted to move because the place I was in

was just, like, a hellhole for me.

I really didn't like the old house,

so I'm glad we moved out.

We were introduced to her son, Daniel,

and a lot of the people in her life at the time,

including one person who would end up

being a very important figure in her life,

her lawyer, Howard K. Stern.

In time, he became her lawyer, her companion.

I think there's no question that a lot of people

tuned into Anna Nicole's E! reality show

because they wanted to see

this kind of train wreck going on.

It's very clear on that reality show

that she is high as a kite a good deal of the time.

I think it's like a Mexican type.

-Yeah, like a -- -Like a cana bana?

Is that what you call it?

-Cabana? -Cabana?

Cabana?

You kind of can't believe that a person lives this life

and you just, for some reason, want to see more and know more.

Woman: Anna, over here!

Trendy: She played the ditzy blond with the red lips

for the cameras, I think.

However, behind closed doors with Anna and myself,

she was always -- she knew what she wanted.

Casarez: Then after a few years,

she decides to lose the weight,

completely transforms her body, and then becomes a spokesperson

for the weight-loss supplement TrimSpa.

Hilton: She was having the last laugh,

making money and fluctuating with her weight.

Casarez: We all saw that body transformation

and that svelte figure at the 2004 American Music Awards,

but we also saw an Anna Nicole that seemed to be intoxicated.

When I saw the 2004 American Music Awards, she saunters in.

She's strutting.

She's showing off her curves,

and then when she said, "Like my body?"

[ Crowd cheering ]

Like my body?

[ Cheering continues ]

That was not a sober person.

I was honored to be in our next performer's new video.

And if I ever record an album,

I want this guy to produce mine

and make me beautiful duets

because he's freaking genius.

Anderson: We were watching the beginning of a downward spiral.

She was very erratic.

She seemed sloppy.

She seemed troubled.

There were signs of drug use.

Jane, what are you expecting?

I would have to say that it will probably be drug-related.

Good evening. A sad day.

We begin on the phone exclusively with Donna Hogan.

Donna is Anna Nicole's sister.

Can you say you were totally shocked?

Hogan: Not really shocked

because of her lifestyle and everything.

I mean, it's something you don't wish to happen,

but, you know, back of your mind,

you're knowing someday it might.

Are you surmising then it was drug-related?

That would be my first guess.

Anna Nicole wasn't just a train wreck.

I really feel that she had a sweetness to her.

She had a big heart.

Another major person in Anna Nicole's life

was Larry Birkhead.

He was from Kentucky,

working in Los Angeles as a photographer.

They met in 2004 and had a very intimate relationship.

Velez-Mitchell: It's around Valentine's Day of 2006

that Anna Nicole Smith reveals to Larry Birkhead

that she's pregnant with his child,

and he's overjoyed.

Seidlin: Larry Birkhead,

I found, to be a genuine individual

who loved Anna Nicole

and tried to get her off of drugs.

Dr. Kapoor: She was on opiates and she was pregnant,

so that gives you a high-risk pregnancy.

Seidlin: She entered Cedars-Sinai for detox,

for rehabilitation,

lets her Mother, Virgie, know,

and it's a mess.

Dr. Kapoor: I was, you know, treating her as a patient

and worked with the people at Cedars,

the doctors at Cedars to iron out a plan

to have her have a healthy baby.

Seidlin: Larry is trying to talk her into staying off of drugs,

and she doesn't want to hear from that.

So she basically then sends him away,

isolates herself

and continues to take drugs.

Velez-Mitchell: Because of the conflict

between Anna Nicole and Larry Birkhead,

all of a sudden, she decides,

"Oh, I don't want him to be the daddy anymore."

She needed to leave because of Larry Birkhead.

Seidlin: Anna Nicole and Mr. Stern

go to the Bahamas and she gives birth there.

Velez-Mitchell: You put Howard K. Stern on the birth certificate.

Voilà, he is the daddy of this child you're about to have.

Seidlin: But Larry Birkhead

ran to the court in California to say,

"I'm ready to do a paternity test.

I'm the father."

Simpson: I never told anybody this.

Anna came to me and said, "You have blond hair.

You have blue eyes.

I want you to say you're the father of the baby.

You put your name on the birth certificate."

And I was going to.

We talked about it, and then Howard broke the story

to Larry King.

So you are the father?

Yes, sir.

By the way, have there been any DNA tests taken?

Is that -- Proud father.

What?

I said proud father.

Were DNA tests taken?

Based on the timing, there really is no doubt

in either of our minds.

In 2006, while Anna Nicole is pregnant,

she appears in a video at her Bahamas home

during the ninth birthday party of a girlfriend's daughter.

This video shot by Howard K. Stern

shows Anna Nicole very disoriented.

I have got to start with this video

"Showbiz Tonight" uncovered today.

It's absolutely disturbing footage of Anna Nicole Smith

in clown makeup, completely spaced out

at a child's birthday party in 2006.

She can't figure out if she's pregnant

or if she has gas. Watch this.

Look how big my belly is getting because it's gas.

It's your baby.

Nuh-unh.

It's gas.

It's your baby.

She's talking in a baby voice like a tiny, little child.

My baby is over there.

Watch.

It's a battery baby.

Don't open her skin.

She was drugged.

She was drugged to the point where she didn't

even know she was drugged.

Stern: Is this a mushroom trip? Huh?

Is this a mushroom trip? Huh?

Is this a mushroom trip?

Obviously she was under the influence of something then.

Casarez: Howard K. Stern says Anna Nicole was pretending,

and she was just acting in this video.

Simpson: It was very sad to watch.

I was just like, "Why wasn't I there?

Why couldn't I have been there that day

so that wouldn't have happened?"

Reporter 3: And on September 7th,

in a hospital in the Bahamas,

Smith gave birth to a baby girl.

She gave birth to a healthy little girl, Dannielynn.

Anderson: She loved baby Dannielynn.

Yet she also was struggling

with prescription-drug abuse at the same time.

So was she 100% present as a mother

those first few months of that baby's life?

It's hard to say.

That night that she gave birth,

her son, Danny, was flying in to meet his new sister

and to be with his mother.

It was a reunion that lasted a night,

and then the next day, the horror set in.

Banfield: And in that same hospital room

where Anna Nicole has given birth,

brother Daniel overdoses and dies.

He is found upright in that hospital chair

in that hospital room.

It is a tragedy of Shakespearean dimension.

King: Dr. Wecht, you performed the autopsy on Daniel.

Daniel died of what?

Combined drug toxicity, Larry --

methadone and two antidepressants.

Stern: She's struggling with her emotions.

It's been very rough,

and she said that she didn't want to trade out children,

meaning she didn't want one to be born and another to die.

Banfield: Anna Nicole loses

the most important thing in her life,

the only thing

that she, by all accounts, loved the most.

Hilton: She had an episode in the funeral,

where she demanded her son's casket be opened

and she said she wanted to be buried with him.

Atteu: Deep in my heart, I knew after Daniel had died

that my friend had gone.

I never saw the willingness to want to live.

She did numb her pain with drugs.

Velez-Mitchell: The last days of her life

are really the final act of a tragedy.

♪♪

Velez-Mitchell: Anna Nicole Smith was clearly an addict

for virtually her whole life.

The last days of her life

are really the final act of a tragedy.

February 5th for Anna Nicole seemed pretty normal.

She was at a dance lesson, so presumably,

she is healthy enough to do that.

Anna Nicole Smith and her entourage, Howard K. Stern

and Dr. Eroshevich, leave the Bahamas.

They fly to Miami.

Banfield: She and Howard K. Stern had a plan

to look at a yacht in Florida.

She is in a limo on the way

to the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino

when she starts feeling chills.

By the time she gets to the hotel lobby,

she is very wobbly to the point

where Howard K. Stern has to help her cross the lobby.

Banfield: At about 7:30,

Anna Nicole had a fever of about 105.

Extraordinary.

She took an ice bath.

She had a prescription for Tamiflu and some antibiotics,

some chloral hydrate.

Casarez: Chloral hydrate is a sedative

and a hypnotic pharmaceutical drug

and can be used to fight insomnia,

but at higher doses, it also depresses respiration

and even blood pressure.

A temperature of 105 degrees

in an adult is a medical emergency.

I mean, she should've been transported right away.

But she refused to go to the hospital

or have her friends call 911.

♪♪

Banfield: February 6th,

Anna Nicole spent just about the entire day in bed

watching television and trying to recover.

Velez-Mitchell: Then she proceeds

not only to take chloral hydrate,

but to take four other medications.

I mean, this is a knockout drug.

You can't just keep taking it.

♪♪

Banfield: On February 7th, Anna Nicole had her first meal

of the day around noon,

but in the middle of the day, something went wrong.

Velez-Mitchell: She finds herself naked in the bathtub,

but there's no water in the bathtub.

And she seemed very confused.

To me, that says she is completely drug-addled

at that moment in time.

Banfield: Sounding like a broken record here,

but she again took chloral hydrate.

February 8th.

This is the last day of Anna Nicole's life.

She wakes up, but she complains about fatigue,

and Howard K. Stern

reportedly took her to the bathroom,

got her back into bed, said he didn't notice

that she had taken any drugs at that time, but then he left.

Velez-Mitchell: At about 1:00, Tazma,

the wife of Big Moe, who is Anna Nicole Smith's bodyguard,

goes in and sees Anna Nicole unresponsive.

She does not call 911.

She proceeds to administer CPR and call her husband.

Big Moe: And when I saw her, her lips didn't look right.

They looked kind of pale and blue.

So I slapped her on the face, tried to wake her up.

Stern: I got a call from Moe that something was wrong

and that he was gonna call 911.

[ Siren wailing ]

Banfield: The paramedics got to her hotel room

at 1:46 in the afternoon.

They must have worked on her

for quite some time in that hotel room

because it was almost an entire hour later

that she was taken to the hospital by ambulance.

[ Siren wailing ]

I didn't know what was going on,

and when they finally let me go to the hospital,

right when I got there is when I learned that she had died.

And then they let me go in to spend some time with her

and get a priest to give her her last rites.

This is CNN breaking news.

We're bringing you the latest on this developing story,

the news about Anna Nicole Smith, 39 years old.

All of a sudden, within the past few minutes,

we have now confirmed here at CNN that she has died.

She was rushed to a hospital in Hollywood, Florida,

and only moments ago, we did confirm that she is dead.

Anna was my world. You know, I worshipped her.

I worshipped her.

To me, her happiness was more important than my own.

Atteu: I'm never gonna see her again.

I miss her.

I miss her every single day.

Simpson: We had a conversation one time in the Bahamas,

and she looked at me and she said,

"I'm not gonna -- I'm not gonna make it to 40."

Anna Nicole was only 39 years old,

and so the speculation was,

"What happened? Why did she die?"

Well, after six weeks,

we finally found out the sad truth.

We are convinced based on the extensive review

of the evidence that this case is an accidental overdose.

Our initial determination was that most likely the death

is due to some medication or drug toxicity,

with chloral hydrate being the major component.

The other large, looming issue was,

"Who is the father of Dannielynn?"

Reporter 4: Two men,

Howard K. Stern and Larry Birkhead,

both tell CNN they are the baby's daddy.

So you are the father?

Yes, sir.

King: Okay. What do you make of that?

Well, it's just one big lie.

Hammer: Who is the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby?

I mean, this became a national pastime.

It could have been a game show.

Seidlin: Who was the father? Who's the daddy?

Was it Larry Birkhead?

Was it Howard Stern?

I had prisoners in jail writing me letters

that they're the father.

Every meatball on the street

was telling me that they're the father.

Reporter 5: Prince Frederick von Anhalt,

husband of actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, claimed today

that he had a 10-year affair with Smith,

suggesting he might be the baby's daddy.

There are lots of people who could be the father.

-Could you be the father? -I don't know.

I mean, you know, sometimes I'm a bad boy.

Yeah.

Frantic frenzy over who's the daddy finally came to an end

and it was all a matter of science.

A DNA expert confirmed Larry Birkhead

is the father of Dannielynn,

the 6-month-old child of Anna Nicole Smith.

Birkhead came out of the courthouse and played the crowd.

I hate to be the one that told you this, but I told you so.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Thank you very much.

You know, it's all up in the air.

Nothing's really determined except parentage,

and I'm the father, and my baby is gonna be coming home

pretty soon, so...

♪♪

Hammer: Hopefully, a big part of her legacy will be Dannielynn.

Anna Nicole would be very happy

that her daughter is being loved by her dad.

♪♪

Trendy: I feel Anna's legacy should be

you can be anyone you want,

no matter where you came from.

If I could do one thing as Anna's best friend,

that would be to let everybody know that she adored her fans.

She absolutely lived for her fans.

Such an amazing person.

Atteu: I'm just so sorry that so many other people

missed the opportunity to be able get to know

her the way I did.

Anna Nicole's legacy...

I think she is an icon.

She's an icon for all people that are in mid-America

with aspirations that are bigger than what they believe.

I've just always felt something,

felt that I could do something with myself,

and I just wanted to try.

And you're gonna see me more.

Perhaps Anna Nicole Smith should be remembered best

for having fought the good fight,

by making it to the top despite so many setbacks.

When Anna got knocked down, she got right back up.

Anna Nicole Smith was larger-than-life at her peak,

but in the end, the tragic death of her son

was too much to overcome.

Thanks for watching, everyone. Good night.