Larry Birkhead Opens Up About Meeting Anna Nicole Smith, Raising Daughter Dannielynn Birkhead

Anna Nicole Smith’s boyfriend Larry Birkhard is opening up about their daughter Dannielynn Birkhead and about how he first met Smith.

LARRY BIRKHEAD ON ANNA NICOLE SMITH RELATIONSHIP

Feb. 8 marked the 10-year anniversary of Smith’s death, and the 44-year-old single father is revealing details about their relationship. “She didn’t say it to me, she said it to her attorney Howard,” Birkhead said of Smith having a crush on him. “She kept waving at me and blowing kisses. I mean she knew how to work the camera.”

“The thing about Anna was it was almost like a split personality. When the camera was going, she was a whole different thing. That was more to me an act than it was the real person who she was,” Birkhead explained. “She told me once, ‘Larry, I gave myself to Hollywood when I said I wanted to do this so I have tons of theses fans I want to give them what they want.'”

In their 10-year-old daughter Dannielynn, Birkhead says he sees a lot of Smith. “She’s fearless like her mom,” he described. “She’ll get on any roller coaster that you put in front of her. I could stand right next to my daughter and we could look like twins, and the first thing they’ll say is… ‘spitting image of the mother.'”

Smith, who struggled with drug abuse, died Feb. 8, 2007 of an accidental overdose. She was 39 at the time of her death. Dannielynn was just five months old at the time. “Anna always wanted a little girl, that was her dream,” Birkhead continued. “She went from city to city, as far back [as] the ’90s, and she would collect outfits from all these road trips… and hope that one day that she could dress her in all these frilly outfits.”

Birkhead shared that he’s tried to explain to his daughter what happened to her mother. “The way I’ve told Dannielynn in the past is that, ‘Your mom took some medicines and she… might not [have] taken them correctly or the right way, and the doctors couldn’t help her, and they tried.”

Birkhead had to go through court battles to get custody of Dannielynn after Smith’s untimely death. Several other men came forward claiming to be the father, but a paternity test finally declared with 100% accuracy that Birkhead was her dad. Even Smith’s lawyer Howard K. Stern claimed to be the father, but once paternity was proved, Stern became very supportive of Birkhead. “The minute after the paternity test was over… he’s helping me change Dannielynn’s diaper, [showing me], ‘This is how you feed her,’ … it’s been nonstop since then.”

Birkhead also spoke about the supposed fortune left behind by Smith for their daughter. “[Dannielynn] came home and asked me where the money was, and I said, ‘I’m still looking for it.'” Countless legal battles have gone on between Smith’s lawyers and those of her late husband, oil tycoon Howard Marshall II. He was 89 when he married the 24-year-old Smith, and left his entire $1.6 billion estate to his son, and nothing to his widow. The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court twice, but each time Dannielynn was denied any money from Marshall’s estate.

“If Dannielynn is to inherit anything via her mom that she was entitled to, so be it, but it’s not like we’re sitting around waiting for one thing to happen,” Birkhead said. He also shared that he is receiving no money from the Smith estate for raising Dannielynn. “It’s just like any other kid who has lost a celebrity parent. They think that the child is automatically destined for the same path,” he said. “[But] she can work me like her mom could work people. She gets what she wants.”