Inside Anna Nicole Smith’s strange, wild and tragic short life

Simply put, Birkhead left the best parts of Anna Nicole’s legacy intact for her daughter, leaving Dannielynn humanly possible not only from a fate similar to her mother’s, but also from the pitfalls of the wrong kind of media exposure. We want to protect it as much as possible.

Smith’s pop culture legacy, on the other hand, was clearly more than that of an impressive model, actress and reality star who died too young. Her story has many twists that are stranger than fiction, and has proven ripe for a retelling via TV movies like 2007. The Story of Anna Nicole Smith starring Willa Ford or 2013’s Anna Nicole In a Lifetime; Opera in 2011 Anna Nicoleor the 2012 documentary fame addictionfeaturing disturbing footage edited during production illegal alien.

But for the better part of a decade, there were audiences who just sat and watched her decline, not knowing what to do when Smith was alive. Nothing really bad happens in the end. But Anna Nicole Smith’s story didn’t have a happy ending. Instead, it remains a reminder that there’s always a real person behind that lens.

“The thing about Anna…it was like a split personality,” said Birkhead. It was an act rather than a being.”

(Originally published at 5:00 AM PT on Tuesday, November 28, 2017.)