The on-going scrap over the spoils of the dead former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith reached a turning point on Tuesday when the paternity of her baby daughter Dannielynn was finally put beyond doubt.
DNA tests confirmed the baby’s natural father to have been Smith’s former boyfriend, Larry Birkhead, a California-based photographer. The DNA expert who carried out the test on behalf of the Bahamas courts, Dr Michael Baird, said that the result was 99,999% in favour of Birkhead, which he described as ”pretty good”.
Satellite television crews and throngs of tourists to the Bahamas were treated to the sight of Birkhead gloating outside the courtroom in downtown Nassau. ”I hate to be the one to tell you this,” he said, clearly loving it, ”but I told you so.”
He said that, while nothing had been determined except parentage, ”I’m the father. My baby’s going to be coming home pretty soon. I’m going to the toy store.”
The settlement of Smith’s affairs has been marked by exceptional acrimony since she died of an overdose in a Florida hotel room in February. Amid the wrangling, the spectre of the $500-million fortune which she was claiming from the estate of her late husband, the oil tycoon Howard Marshall, was never far away.
Aspersions flew over how she died, and there was an unseemly tussle over the location and manner of her burial. The paternity of her child — and with it the right to pursue the claim for the Marshall money — was also questioned within hours of her death. Several men stepped forward to claim the child was theirs.
Florida courts eventually turned Smith’s body over to Dannielynn, and a temporary guardian ordered Smith to be buried in the Bahamas, next to her son, Daniel (20) who died in September of an apparent drug overdose.
Even now, litigation is likely to continue over who has custody rights over Dannielynn, with the case expected back in the colonial courthouse.
Howard Stern was the model’s long-term partner, and is listed as the seven-month-old’s father on her birth certificate. But last night he accepted the DNA test, and said he would not fight custody. ”This whole process has been very difficult,” he commented.
He has made threatening noises to pursue legal action against elements of the media and against Smith’s mother, Virgie Arthur, who speculated that he might have been involved in her death. Stern vowed to prevent Arthur from gaining any access to the child.
”I’m going to do everything I can to make sure he [Birkhead] gets sole custody,” he said.
For her part, Arthur said that she was only concerned about the safety of her ”little granddaughter”. ”I am happy that she knows who her real father is, and I’m looking forward to working for her best interests.”
”This has been a roller coaster,” she added. ”We’ve lost a grandson. Please don’t forget that.”
Court hearings over custody were to begin on Friday, and Arthur confirmed she still intended to press ahead with a claim for custody over the child. – Guardian Unlimited Â