Blonde Ambition Read online

  birkhead: Well, again, it was important for me to get, you know, to the bottom of this whole thing, the circus that they've created, and also just to let people know that, you know, I am a credible person. I was told I was the father. I've been through all of these motions and emotions to prepare for fatherhood. And I think this is just an absolute crime what has been done to me, and I'm ready to fight for my daughter.

  cosby: At the end of the day, you believe you will be . . . 100 percent?

  birkhead: One hundred and ten percent.

  The following day, Ron Rale, one of Anna's ever-expanding cadre of attorneys fired back: "The truth will be known. Justice will be served."

  "Dannielynn's" birth certificate was redone and Stern was added. According to Bahamian birth certificate number 14598, Howard K. Stern was the proud father. Stern's last name was listed as the baby's last name, even though they were not legally married, even by Bahamian standards. According to Milton Evans, a well-known Bahamian lawyer, "The baby will only take on the father's name if he swears in an affidavit or signifies to the registrar that he is the father, and is prepared for his name to appear on the birth certificate. The mother will also have to be present and confirm that he is the father. So, based on their joint declaration to the birth records officer, that decision will be made to put the name on the certificate as Stern."

  Debra Opri was immediately prepared to file a fraud action against Stern on behalf of her client, Larry Birkhead.

  Interestingly, the rest of Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern's name was all about tribute: to J. Howard Marshall as the wealthy deceased husband, to Daniel as the dead old brother, to Lynn, her mother's "real life" middle name, and, most of all, proclaimed "Hope" for the future because the present was nothing but a sea of despair.

  October 7, 2006

  While Anna remained in seclusion in the Bahamas and Daniel's body awaited proper burial, his friends and family, including his grief-stricken father, Billy Smith, gathered at the First Baptist Church in Anna Nicole's hometown of Mexia, Texas, for a memorial service. Giant green cutouts of the Ninja Turtles greeted about fifty relatives and friends as they arrived at the church to remember the life of the special twenty-year-old.

  Relatives remembered that he loved to play a Texas cowboy. Anna's friend and Daniel's godmother, Jackie Hatten, said that Daniel was a kind young man who kept his nose clean. "Daniel was sweet, sensitive, and very respectful," she told me. "He never cursed, rarely drank, and never wanted to do drugs. I don't think he ever even smoked a cigarette."

  October 19, 2006

  Under the blue but slightly cloudy, October Bahamian sky, a dark gold hearse, followed by a procession of three white limousines, slowly made its way down John F. Kennedy Drive to Lakeview Memorial Gardens and Mausoleum in Nassau. The gold hearse carried the body of Daniel Wayne Smith to his final resting place on the Bahamian Island.

  Upon arrival, the mahogany casket carrying the body of young Daniel was pulled from the hearse and carried past six security officers into the cemetery. As ten more officers, dressed discreetly as guests, stood guard, two dozen invited guests or so made their way into the graveyard and stood quietly around the grave, highlighted only by the shadow cast by a green tent, which had been erected for the private ceremony.

  Positioned in front of a white pavilion known as the Citadel, the guests at the graveside service looked strangely out of place in their dark attire on such a beautiful, and warm, Bahamian day. Daniel's sister, six-week-old Dannielynn, was also in attendance, fawned over by family friends and tended to by Anna Nicole's personal assistant. Anna arrived in a black dress and veil created for her by couture designer and close friend Pol Atteu, who had also designed the dress for her commitment ceremony to Howard K. Stern.

  Anna Nicole Smith was inconsolable. She had real problems accepting that Daniel was gone. In fact, Ben Thompson said the day Daniel died in the hospital, a few hours after she was home and her sedation drugs wore off, Anna had walked out of the bedroom into the living room where Ben and Howard were. "Where's Daniel?" she asked. "Where's he at?" Then, she pointed at his suitcase and said, "There's his bag."

  "It stunned us," Ben Thompson remembers. "She still thought Daniel was alive. We looked at each other and took her into the bedroom. Howard told her what happened and it was like Daniel died all over again."

  • • •

  Just before Daniel's funeral was to begin, Anna demanded that the casket be opened. In front of the small crowd, she sobbed uncontrollably and reached into the coffin, grabbing onto Daniel's body clad in his favorite clothing: a pair of jeans, t-shirt, and a trucker hat. She was hugging her dead son, clinging to him. It was an extraordinarily anguishing moment to see a mother in such pain.

  Daniel had been dead for thirty-nine days.

  • • •

  Even more shocking perhaps, Quethlie Alexis and Nadine Alexie told investigators that when Howard tried to console Anna and gently get her to release Daniel's body, she looked right at Howard and screamed, "You caused this! You did this. Get away from me, you bastard!" It was a surprising and uncomfortable moment for the small crowd.

  "If Daniel has to be buried," she cried, "I want to be buried with him!" She was trying to go down with Daniel into the grave right then and had to be pulled from his dead body.

  The tragic wailing and crying coming from within the tent could be heard throughout the cemetery, drowning out much of Howard K. Stern's eulogy in honor of Daniel. Anna had asked Daniel's friends to write letters that were placed in the casket, along with a photo of her with Daniel, and a rosary that had been blessed by the Pope. Those present shared words of love, sadness, and grief, but Anna was absolutely overwhelmed by her loss. Howard K. Stern would say in a statement released after the funeral, "Anna Nicole laid her son to rest today. It was the most difficult day of her entire life."

  The program given out at the service was filled with pictures of Anna and Daniel saying he was like "a comet, blazing across the evening sky" who "died too soon like a rainbow fading." Also included was a personal note from Anna to her son. "My dearest son Daniel," Anna wrote, "You were my rock. You were the only one who could keep me solid. Why God took you away from me now I do not understand. Perhaps someday I will. It is so hard to think of you, but I do every second."

  One hundred thirty-four days later she would be by his side.

  chapter 6

  Residency and Eviction

  The day after Anna Nicole Smith finally buried her son Daniel, an attorney representing Ben Thompson hand- delivered a letter to Horizons, the house in which she and Howard were living and Ben said he still owned. The letter notified her that she had to vacate the residence by October 31.

  It wasn't unexpected. Ben Thompson had been asking Anna for weeks to begin making the promised payments toward the $900,000 mortgage on the house. "I don't want to embarrass her or humiliate Anna," Ben said. "I just need my money, or collateral, back." Ben said he did sign the deed over to Anna Nicole Smith on the Horizons house. He was allowing her to use the title so that she could get the expedited residency she desperately needed to protect herself from exboyfriend Larry Birkhead's paternity claims. But, Ben says, the plan was always for them to make payments on the house, which he never received.

  Anna seemed to know for some time that she owed money to Ben Thompson. The day after Howard K. Stern appeared on Larry King Live blasting Larry and proclaiming that he, Howard, was the "proud father" of Dannielynn, an e-mail was sent from Anna Nicole's e-mail account to Ben Thompson's work e-mail address. According to Fox News, which obtained the series of e-mails, the September 29 message, with its misspellings and grammatical errors, said in part, "i have NO MONEY, here I cant even berry my son! . . . and they want to do this to me make me sign a mortgage on my house my son isn't even taken care of!!!!!!!"

  The next day, another e-mail from Anna's account arrived in Ben Thompson's inbox. It said, "send the note, i will sign it. Anna." And then, four days later, on October 4
, another saying, "please don't worry im working on getting the money for the house!"

  Money. Though big money deals had been made for photos and exclusives—for hundreds of thousands of dollars, more money than many people will make in a lifetime—the actual funds had either been slow in coming or, possibly, going elsewhere for other uses.

  • • •

  Before Anna came to the Bahamas, she and Howard had retained the well-connected law firm of Callender and Co. in Nassau to help assist her through the residency process, which would give Larry Birkhead more hurdles to jump in his paternity claims. Through Callender, she and Howard were introduced to Bahamas Immigration Minister Shane Gibson, and a friendship blossomed between Anna and Shane Gibson.

  A statement Howard K. Stern gave to the Bahamian Tribune said, "We actually met Minister Gibson for the first time after Tracy Ferguson of Callender and Co. advised us to do so. After our initial meeting we shared a cordial, but not close, relationship with Minister Gibson prior to the death of Anna Nicole's son Daniel."

  Anna Nicole's residency certificate was fast-tracked at lightning speed and, according to the Tribune, it was received in an "absolutely impossible" timeframe and under questionable circumstances. It is highly unusual to get residency approved within three weeks. Many people have been waiting for years. Virtually everyone in the Bahamas felt Anna got special treatment.

  After her application had been submitted on Friday, August 11, an Immigration Department official called the following Monday, August 14, to set up an interview for the next day at Horizons. Callender & Co. only learned her residency had been granted when an exuberant Anna called her attorneys' offices on September 20 and asked her attorney to bring a $10,000 check to Horizons at seven o'clock that night.

  Anna had gotten a call from Shane Gibson directly. He told her the news and said he was coming by that night. When attorney Tracy Ferguson arrived at Anna's house to give her the check, Immigration Minister Shane Gibson was there. It was clear to an eyewitness that Anna thought she was paying Shane directly and questioned why the check was written to the government instead.

  According to the Tribune, the next day, September 21, the Permanent Secretary called Callender & Co. and asked Michael Scott, Anna's attorney and a senior partner at the firm, to send Immigration the $10,000 check for residency. The secretary was surprised to learn that the firm had never received the approval letter and that the check had been delivered the night before directly to Minister Gibson. It was then suggested that she ask the minister's office, where the check was eventually discovered. Within 24 hours, what looked like a quickly written letter was delivered to Callender & Co.

  There were allegations made that expensive gifts were given to Shane Gibson, including a Rolex watch. He denied the accusations with carefully chosen words, repeatedly saying that there were "never any gifts for favors." According to bodyguard Moe Brighthaupt, the one thing Anna definitely gave Shane Gibson was naming him the godfather of Dannielynn.

  "It was when Daniel passed away that we really came to know Minister Gibson," Howard K. Stern said in his statement to the Tribune. "The entire Gibson family—not just Minister Gibson—provided a great deal of emotional support to both Anna Nicole and I during a very difficult period."

  Shortly after her death, photos of Anna and Immigration Minister Shane Gibson in bed together—clothed but fawning over each other—would be splashed across the front page of the Bahamian Tribune newspaper and led to Gibson's resignation. Howard had, of course, taken the photos. In addition, what transpired between the two of them between August and February would make Anna Nicole, the Playboy Playmate and reality TV star, Bahamas' number one election year political topic and was believed by many to have contributed to the defeat of the ruling party.

  • • •

  Shane Gibson's father, King Eric Gibson, a famed Bahamian steel drum musician, and Brigitte, his common-law wife, as well as Gerlene Gibson, his ex-wife, and several other members of the Gibson family found ways to assist Anna. "She was searching," King Eric told me. "She was always searching for a home that she never had. And she found it. We just so happened to be there."

  "We didn't put any demands on her," acknowledged Brigitte, the woman who found Anna's lifeless body in that Florida hotel room. "We didn't judge her. I didn't know anything about her. Mr. Nygard said I met her once at his house, but I don't remember. There are always beautiful women there. I never heard of her, as I don't go tabloid. But of course I was curious to meet her and when I met her . . . I just welcomed her. This is what we do."

  "I think the courtesy we extended to her, she appreciated," King Eric said. "I don't use the word 'abuse,' but I think some kind of things had happened to her where she didn't trust anybody. And she put a lot of trust into my family. She'd go away and leave Mrs. Gibson alone with the baby . . . so that's a lot of trust. She just mistrusts everybody."

  "I was told she was looking for someone to do some babysitting," Mrs. Gibson told me. Mrs. Gibson is the woman who was caring for Dannielynn when Anna Nicole Smith took her last breath. "She did have a nanny that come from away. It was time for the nanny to leave.

  "I was asked if I could fill in for the nanny, and I thought it a good idea to go meet Anna," Mrs. Gibson continued. "We spoke for a while, exchanged some words. I asked her if she believed in God." Both Quethlie Alexis and Nadine Alexie said that they too had conversations with Anna about God, often reading the Bible to her.

  The nannies, who say they are now scared for their lives and are afraid of being deported, said in an interview on Controversy TV, "She's a nice person, a lovely person, someone you know you feel good to be around."

  The first time Mrs. Gibson met Anna she asked her, "Would you like me to pray with you?" Anna had answered yes. "Everyone who was in her room at the time, we all held hands and prayed."

  During the first conversation with Mrs. Gibson, Anna said, "I wish you were my nanny."

  "No doubt, something could work out," Mrs. Gibson said with a smile. "I'll be more than happy to assist in whatever way that I can."

  And that's how her twelve-dollar an hour babysitting job with Anna Nicole Smith began.

  Mrs. Gibson never had a problem being paid.

  • • •

  Everyone I interviewed who knew Anna during her short life in the Bahamas described her similarly: she was a very sweet person in very dark times. And they described her patterns and habits similarly as well, much of which included a lot of sleep and a lot of drugs.

  "I tried to get her out of the house," King Eric told me. "I think she stays in the house too much. She's a little fragile. When she thinks too much she get into tears. She never understand why her son had to die. She never understand that. So the thing to do is not to let her think, so keep her occupied and then she's happy."

  "I believe in nature and the healing powers of nature," Brigitte recounted. "I wanted her to get out more and have some more kind of spirituality that would help her . . . . I wanted to sort of draw her away and get her away from all her troubles, get her on a different track."

  Then there was Dannielynn. Brigitte would speak only her native German with Dannielynn. The baby found it humorous, perhaps because everyone else found it silly. "It's good for babies to do that and everyone thought it was so funny," Brigitte laughed. Singing the baby little German songs when they were together had an added benefit. It made Anna lighten up. "I don't like to go back and brood," Brigitte said. "I'm the opposite and get over it."

  Like Brigitte and King Eric, his ex-wife, Mrs. Gibson, also felt an extreme closeness with Anna, and attempted to help her feel better about her days. "Anna Nicole called me 'Mommy,'" Mrs. Gibson told me proudly. "One day I was standing in her living room and she put her arm around me and she hugged me."

  "You're all the Mommy that I have," Anna said so sweetly. "I wish I had a family like yours."

  Mrs. Gibson says she saw a broken person. "Very sad," Mrs. Gibson remembers. "When she smiled, I always compl
imented her because I so seldom saw her smile. 'I'm glad to see my girl smiling today.' I called her 'my girl.'" Mrs. Gibson said that Anna cried often, saying her son's death was so difficult to handle. "She'd lie in her bed and sob and sob and sob. She would sometimes say, 'I want to go where Daniel is' and question, 'Why did God take Daniel? I wish it was me instead.'"

  One particular day, Anna was wailing in her bedroom and Mrs. Gibson went to check on what was wrong with Anna. When she went into her room, Anna was on her back on the bed. She had a big poster-size photo of Daniel covering part of her body. "The picture part was down on her face," Mrs. Gibson told me.

  Anna Nicole Smith was looking at that photo of her dead son and crying.

  Anna would spend most of her days in bed, surrounded by her four dogs: Sugar Pie, a poodle; Marilyn, a white silky terrier named after her idol; Puppy, a shih tzu; and another shih tzu that seemed to be nameless. She'd sleep, wake up, play with the dogs, take some drugs, then go back to sleep. She wouldn't do much else. "Physically she was okay," Mrs. Gibson said. "But emotionally she was stressed out. Too stressed. That's all I can say."