Blonde Ambition Read online

  Regarding the slew of e-mails, apparently unbeknownst to Howard, Anna had been more than just getting e-mails from Larry Birkhead; she had also been speaking to him covertly on the phone and text messaging him, sometimes even using other people's cell phones. According to Anna's employee confidante, Larry Birkhead, the man claiming to be the father of her child, was secretly a part of her life even as late as January 2007. In fact, on Christmas Day 2006, Anna called Larry to tell him "the baby is beautiful" and "she loved him." After the conversation, Larry told people he was so happy to get the nice call.

  "They used to talk on the phone," he said. "They would talk for hours. The minute Howard would come around, she would hang up."

  But Howard K. Stern didn't know about the ongoing conversations and, in fact, spun a different story. "She never considered him a boyfriend," he said during the nationally televised interview. "Anna and I have been in a relationship and we love each other and it's been going on for a very long time and because of my relationship as her lawyer, we felt that it was best to keep everything hidden. And we've done a pretty good job of that."

  Howard K. Stern announced, "I am the proud father."

  • • •

  Howard's announcement was a shock not only to America but also to most of Anna and Howard's friends. One of Howard's closest friends told me privately, "Since Howard came out on TV and said he's the dad, I was always suspicious of him. But I didn't want to get in the middle of it."

  Peter Nygard, the billionaire fashion designer whom Anna dated for three years in the late 1990s, said, "Howard was Anna's houseboy. She was clearly not interested in him."

  "I bet the bank they never had sex," Ben Thompson told me. He, like Peter Nygard, was another boyfriend Anna had during the ten years she knew Howard. Thompson said Anna and Howard had separate bedrooms, even when they visited his family in South Carolina. "He was her personal valet," he said, "but never her lover. If he ever looked at her with lust, she would have clocked him."

  Ben Thompson knew the two of them for years, and says he never saw Howard romantic with anyone. According to Jackie Hatten, Daniel's godmother, Anna Nicole told her, "Eeeew! I'd never sleep with Howard, if he's the last person on earth. He's gay!"

  Ben Thompson says that Anna told him on numerous occasions, "Howard was repulsive to her." He also revealed to me startling conversations he had had directly with Anna and Howard, which show that Howard knew from the beginning that he was not the father of little Dannielynn. Ben divulged that these conversations happened "right before she left for the Bahamas and while in the Bahamas, when they were trying to get me to say I was the father of Anna's newborn."

  In early summer of 2006, when Anna was around five months pregnant, Howard was "country ," according to friends. He wanted to find a locale that would be a good escape from looming paternity issues. Bahamian patrimonial law and the kind treatment of the rich and famous played into Howard and Anna's strategy when they were considering where to move.

  An eyewitness says Howard, acting as Anna's attorney, called the Nassau law firm of Callender and Company. The eldest Callender established his practice in Nassau in the early 1900s. Since then, the name Callender has become synonymous with law in the Bahamas. Howard said that he was the attorney for Anna Nicole Smith and claimed that they were having trouble with the father of Anna's unborn baby.

  "She doesn't want to be anywhere near the father," Howard told Bahamian attorney Michael Scott. "The father is threatening her. We want to make it difficult to have paternity proven. He's creating problems, and may be threatening her with alimony issues and other things. Is it [the Bahamas] a safe haven for us?"

  The eyewitness to Howard's conversation told me "it was clear they were running away from the father and trying to get a legal opinion to make sure the Bahamas was the right place to escape their expected legal troubles." There was an orchestrated reason for their asylum in the Bahamas. "Howard specifically asked if the Bahamas was a suitable jurisdiction to avoid paternity issues."

  "We need a friendly jurisdiction for our purpose," Howard reiterated to the Bahamian attorney. He then explained that they needed to be quick because the father was already beating the drum. He said that Anna needed to deliver the baby in the islands, as well as establish residency to protect Anna against stateside claims from the father.

  Soon after the conversation, Howard decided that the Bahamas was a good choice.

  "It was one big façade," said the eyewitness.

  A month later they had packed up their life and moved to the Bahamas, but not before asking Ben Thompson if he'd be willing to be listed as the father of the baby.

  "I can't," he said. "I've had a vasectomy."

  "Is there any way that your vasectomy didn't work?" Anna pleaded.

  "I know it worked," her friend said. "I was at the doctor's recently. Honey, I can't have kids. It's a matter of record. I can't be the father. It would be an obvious lie."

  "Pleeeeease," Anna begged, putting on her little girl voice and pouting her lips.

  "Let me think about it," Ben said, swayed by her beseeching. "But I don't think it's right."

  As it turns out, the vasectomy wouldn't matter in the Bahamas. There, paternity law presumes that a male is recognized by law as the father of a child in several circumstances that would suit Anna's needs. Paternity in the Bahamas can be established if "the person marries the mother of the child after the birth of the child and acknowledges that he is the natural father." Or, if marriage is too "confining," the father of a child can be the man who "was cohabitating with the mother of the child in a relationship of some permanence at the time of the birth of the child."

  And if marriage or even living together is not desired, paternity may be established if the man has "acknowledged in proceedings for registration of the child . . . that he is the father of the child." In other words, if a woman names a man as the father, and the man says he is, he is recognized as the father under Bahamian law. The laws are so loose that many Bahamian men joke that basically anybody can be a "father."

  The law says if the paternity is questioned or challenged, upon appeal, the court may seek to obtain blood tests of "such persons as the court specifies," but the person named can refuse to submit to the tests. Then, "the court may draw such inferences as it thinks appropriate."

  Anna just needed to get her permanent Bahamian residency to avoid any subpoenas or demands that might come from Larry Birkhead and the American courts, or so she thought.

  The philosophy of the Bahamian government on immigration, like paternity laws, was relatively amenable to her needs. If you want to live in the Bahamas, you must be of "good character." Messy television moments could be overlooked, as long as the applicant didn't have a criminal record. The applicant should be prepared to show evidence of financial support. Even though she did not have a lot of money at the time, she did have a lucrative contract with TrimSpa and she was a big name star.

  But the best attraction to Anna's Bahamavention was that "accelerated consideration" is given to applications for annual or permanent residence to major international investors who have residences valued at $500,000 or more.

  Anna had the country. Now, she just needed the house.

  • • •

  Anna Nicole had earlier vacationed in the Bahamas with former boyfriend and billionaire fashion mogul Peter Nygard in the late 1990s. Bahamians have made celebrities feel welcome for years, which is why it has become a destination playground for those with money and, like "Anna Nicole Smith," with marquee names. Peter owns a luxurious private resort in the Bahamas called Nygard Cay. It is its own fantasy island, with cabanas on stilts, views of the ocean from every cabana, and the perfect place to escape.

  Anna and Peter had met at one of the Academy Awards' parties he throws annually in Los Angeles. She was with another guy, but she paid attention to Peter all night and they exchanged numbers. This encounter resulted in Anna and Peter dating on and off from 1997 to 2000, and Anna becoming
one of his models, posing in his catalogs and going on trips with him.

  "Anna called me twice before she came to the Bahamas, around June of 2006," Peter Nygard said. "She told me she may be going there, and told me she was looking for a house."

  "Is it okay if I stay with you as a back-up?" she asked Peter. "If I can't find a place right away?"

  She told Peter she would love to go there with him again, and asked if he'd take her there almost immediately on his private plane. "I told her I couldn't go right then because of work," he said.

  "She was truly a sweetheart," Peter told me. "One of the most fun, charming people you would ever meet. But she had such a problem with drugs. I thoroughly enjoyed her when she was sober, but I was so depressed when I saw her so drunk and out of it." Peter says there were always lots of prescription drugs around her, and she always wanted more. At one point while they were dating, Peter had to put her in her own room—a separate room from his—because she was so out of control with her drug use. He had someone assigned to watch her on his large property in Nassau because he was scared she'd trip or fall down the stairs and hurt herself. Peter broke up with Anna because he says he wouldn't go along with her on her drug issues. After he told her, "You are not going to self destruct on my watch," he had put distance between them.

  Even if Anna couldn't stay with Peter, she had another option that proved to be even better for avoiding paternity issues. South Carolinian Ben Thompson wouldn't readily agree to claim he was the father of Anna's baby, but he did say yes to letting them stay at his luxurious Bahamian waterfront estate, Horizons. Worth more than a half million dollars, the real estate criteria for expedited Bahamian residency, Horizons would be the perfect house for them until Ben wanted it back.

  After moving to the Bahamas, Anna's need for a father had grown in direct relation to her growing belly, and as her due date approached, she again began asking Ben Thompson to let her put his name down on the birth certificate. "She kept urging me to do it," Ben explained. "And I kept telling her and Howard that I can't be the dad because I had the vasectomy. The odds are 1 in 10 million, and I didn't want to lie on paper."

  Anna and Ben had several discussions about it. She told him that Howard really wanted to be listed as the father and was very disappointed that he was not going to be listed on the birth certificate. Ben surmises that Howard clearly wanted to be tied to her. Ben finally said to her, "I'm here to help you in any way I can. You know I love you, but I can't do this."

  Ben repeated to Howard that he couldn't do it. "I can't put a lie down on paper," he reiterated.

  Anna Nicole did not list a father in the first version of Dannielynn's birth certificate, telling their close friends that she wasn't sure whom she wanted to put down as father. "They both made statements that they knew Howard was not the father," an eyewitness said. "We all knew Larry Birkhead was the dad."

  Toward the end of September as Larry Birkhead began to get more vocal in his claims of fatherhood, Anna told Ben that if he wouldn't say he was the father, that Howard had offered to do it. Perhaps she hoped that would push Ben towards "yes." He didn't bite. After a final discussion took place in the Bahamas between Ben, Howard, and Anna at the Horizons house, Ben refused a final time to list himself as father.

  "Anna is going to be very disappointed with you," Howard told him.

  Ben left the next day and returned to the States. A few days later, Howard came on Larry King Live, saying he's the dad and shocking the world.

  Larry King Live, September 26, 2006

  "Dannielynn is the first name and Hope is the middle name and where that comes from is that Daniel used to call Anna or his mom 'Mamma Lynn, '" Howard announced like the proud father, the one he was claiming to be. "I'll tell you, our baby is one ray of hope and it's the one thing that's really keeping her going and through it all, even with all the pain she has been a great mom, a very attentive mom and she's always by Dannielynn's side."

  "By the way," Larry King asked. "Have there been any DNA tests taken?

  "Proud father," Stern answered.

  "What?" King asked, confused by the "Who's on First?" exchange.

  "I said proud father."

  "Were DNA tests taken?" Larry repeated.

  "Well, based on the timing of when the baby was born there really is no doubt in either of our minds," Howard said with the verbal acuity of a legally trained professional.

  "Did Daniel know that you were the father?"

  "He did. He did," Howard said.

  But Daniel knew Howard wasn't the father. According to a close friend of Howard's, in the spring of 2006 Daniel and Anna told him Larry Birkhead was the dad. Larry Birkhead has also confirmed that Daniel knew he was the father and that they had had conversations about it. According to this friend who talked to her regularly until her death, by early 2007 Anna just wanted to take the DNA test and get it over with. Let the whole world know it was Larry's kid and end the charade, she confided to friends. "But several days after she told me that," one friend said, "Ron Rale came out and said he is not allowing her to take the DNA test, that he's against it." Privately, Howard and Ron Rale were in agreement. "But she definitely planned at some point to have the baby in California," the friend said. "She made a room for the baby with beautiful granite floors at her house in Los Angeles."

  • • •

  "If it got to a legal case," Larry King asked Howard, "if supposedly there were lawsuits involved, would you take a DNA?"

  "Yes," Howard said. "At this point if he was able to file a lawsuit and do it, I don't know why he hasn't done it through legal means. I don't understand, you know, why he would choose to go through the media to do what he's done. But at this point I'm not going to do him any favors . . . . It's unforgivable to me the way that he—with everything that we're going through right now—that he would go to the media and not wait until Daniel has been put to rest."

  According to a close friend, in addition to the financial issues of having Daniel's funeral in Texas or California, Howard told Anna she could not risk going back to the United States to bury Daniel because of the impending paternity issues. Howard helped Anna come to terms with the reality that Daniel had to be buried in the Bahamas, the place he had told Ray Martino he never wanted to live. When they discovered that a mausoleum in the Bahamas was cost prohibitive, they settled on a gravesite where, planning ahead, they could get four plots side by side —

  one for Daniel, one for Anna, one for Howard, and one for "their new baby together," Dannielynn.

  When Larry King asked Howard about a tabloid report that Anna Nicole needed money and therefore sold photos of Daniel and his baby half-sister to pay for the funeral, Howard responded, "When we had all the media outcry after Daniel passed, there's literally been photographers camped across the street, driving back and forth, camera crews. And we decided that if we release those images, which told a story of a joyous night that it was going to be a good thing and we were going to do it to create a Daniel Wayne Smith Charitable Foundation. So she hasn't profited from those images . . . Obviously, the funeral is going to take place long before any money comes from that."

  In that night's highly talked about interview, Howard said Anna picked the Bahamas "to get away from the media and to start a new life" and to give her daughter "a chance to live a normal life." The next months of their "normal" life would get even weirder. Before they would get around to burying Daniel, Anna and Howard would do a "photo-op" commitment ceremony for People magazine. And, after they'd bury him in a heartbreaking, surreal funeral, they'd sell "exclusive" interviews to Entertainment Tonight for a reported one million dollars that would include Howard's dramatic video footage of her C-section, Anna's tears over Daniel, and her venomous, heavily medicated, diatribe of hatred towards her mother.

  Anna's life was anything but normal. And the strangest and possibly most deceptive episodes were yet to come.

  chapter 5

  Committed and Buried in Debt

  Ann
a was sleeping a lot. And when she wasn't sleeping she was crying. The death of her son was haunting her. Though now a confusion of memories clouded by drugs and the blur of tears, she knew Daniel's death was real. She had a certificate saying so, and his decomposing body was awaiting burial in a Bahamian morgue. During her lucid moments, the recollections of the hours around his death deeply troubled her.

  She told several employees, who have gone on record, that she was afraid Howard may have had something to do with Daniel's death. Quethlie Alexis and Nadine Alexie, two of Anna's Haitian nannies, gave sworn affidavits to Bahamian attorneys on December 4, 2006, in anticipation of being called as witnesses for the inquest into Daniel's death. They had made some highly charged accusations about Anna Nicole, Howard K. Stern, and events in the Horizons house on Eastern Road. They also went on Bahamian television saying that they are fearful for their lives because they discovered that Howard K. Stern wanted information about them and where they live.

  Quethlie Alexis, a thirty-seven-year-old married mother of one child, came to help Anna as the nursery maid and nanny for Anna's expected daughter on September 4, just three days before the birth. She says that the same day she met Anna, Anna told her she had no one to help her. "Where your family?" she asked in her broken English, since she speaks primarily Creole, a French dialect.