Anna Nicole Smith passed away in February 2007, just five months after the birth of her daughter, Dannielynn. But her legacy lives on in the little girl, who is being raised by her father, Larry Birkhead.
“Look at her, she’s my everything,” Birkhead, 42, told Entertainment Tonight of his 9-year-old daughter in a new interview. “She reminds me so much of her mom. It’s just like having a little miniature Anna Nicole running around.”
The outgoing little girl, who previously followed in her mother’s footsteps as a Guess model, appeared with her dad in the new interview, showing plenty of personality and talking about her love of Star Wars and Minecraft. At one point Birkhead quipped, “You could have looked like me and that would have been bad,” to which she replied, “Tell me about it.”
After Smith died at 39 from an accidental drug overdose, there was a nasty and complicated custody battle surrounding Dannielynn, which involved her attorney Howard K. Stern, Frederic Prinz von Anhalt, bodyguard Alexander Denk, and the sperm of her late husband, Howard Marshall. Ultimately, Birkhead proved to be the father after a paternity test was issued, despite a series of men who came forward claiming paternity.
And though he knows his daughter will one day hear the truth about her mom’s colorful past, he doesn’t want to mislead her. Smith was a model and actress who first rose to fame in 1993 after being named Playmate of the Year. She struggled with substance abuse and her son, Daniel Smith, died just three days after Dannielynn’s birth due to a drug overdose.
“We go back all the time; we go to the grave and we visit,” Birkhead said. “I tell Danni the stories about her mom. I don’t sugarcoat it… My daughter likes to Google already, and I’m trying to keep her from it.”
