The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals

by Michelle Morgan

  But while it seemed for a time that Anna’s demons had been silenced, it was all an illusion. By the time she started making her reality show, The Anna Nicole Show, in 2002, it was clear that she still had a problem. Panned by the critics for her outrageous behaviour on screen, the programme showed Anna arguing with her staff, including lawyer Howard K. Stern, trying to avoid her toothless cousin who had suddenly shown up on her doorstep, and embarking on a pizza-eating contest with her son and personal assistant.

  The entire show became a source of gossip at water-coolers everywhere, particularly when a clearly drunk and overweight Smith was seen gyrating with lap dancers in Las Vegas, and simulating sex (fully clothed, thankfully) with her lawyer. The show was so bad that it became something of a train wreck, but there was a sadder side to it, too, as even the most hard-hearted of people could see that here was a woman in obvious pain and distress. Anna was frequently taped slurring her words, as though back on medication, and while she was most certainly larger than life during most of it, there were certainly times during the show when she seemed like a little girl lost, surrounded by paid friends, when all she really needed was a hug from a loving parent.

  Eventually – and predictably – the show was cancelled, and perhaps after seeing herself on screen, Anna took the opportunity to embark on another quest to slim down and clean up her act. She seemed to succeed and began dating photographer Larry Birkhead, conceiving his child in late 2005. Fans would have to wait until June 2006 for an official statement, however, which came – quite predictably – in a video posted on her website.

  Floating on an inflatable bed on her swimming pool, Anna announced that she had been reading a lot of gossip about herself in the newspapers and wanted to stop the rumours that had been circulating. “Yes, I am pregnant. I’m happy, I’m very, very happy about it,” she said, before adding that everything was going very well with the pregnancy and she promised to let fans share her excitement through her website in the months to come.

  This revelation intrigued both fans and the media, who wondered who was responsible for the pregnancy, but Anna remained tight-lipped and refused to name the father of the child. This decision only succeeded in making the reporters even more intrigued and they began camping out on her doorstep in order to try and catch the future father coming or going from the house. This media attention did not sit well with the pregnant Anna, so she surprised everyone by moving to the Bahamas, where she hoped to live a quieter and more fulfilled life.

  By this point it seemed that everything in Anna’s life was going much better and everyone hoped that she had turned her life around – that she was off prescription drugs and happily waiting for the birth. Unfortunately, while on the outside everything did indeed seem to be positive and moving forward nicely, inside all was not as it seemed, though somehow she managed to keep this side of her life very much hidden from fans and reporters.

  After her death, the Los Angeles Superior Court acquired a disturbing video of a heavily pregnant Anna Nicole being painted as a clown by a friend’s young daughter. The footage shows the model denying that she is pregnant, and instead she assures the camera that she is only suffering from gas, and that her real baby is lying next to the pool. The camera, controlled by lawyer Howard K. Stern, pans towards the “baby”, which is really a plastic doll. “[Anna] has major brain trouble,” observes the little girl, who seems to be the only sensible person in the house.

  The video gets even more bizarre when Anna Nicole is seen changing and caring for the doll in the nursery at her home, cooing and later wheeling it around in a pram. “This footage is worth money!” laughs Howard K. Stern, as a clearly disturbed Anna looks fuzzily into the camera. Bizarrely, it was later denied that Anna was on drugs at all during the episode, but if she wasn’t she must surely have been a much better actress than originally thought.

  On 7 September 2006 Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern was born, and Howard K. Stern was listed as the father on the birth certificate. This was at best a mistake and at worst a lie, as in reality the baby was most definitely the result of Anna’s romance with Larry Birkhead. On the evening of 9 September 2006, while recovering in a Bahamas hospital after the birth, Anna was thrilled to receive a visit from her son, Daniel. Unfortunately, while sitting at her bedside the next morning, the twenty-year-old passed away suddenly, much to the shock and distress of his mother who lay just feet away from his chair.

  The autopsy revealed that Daniel had a combination of the drugs Zoloft, Lexapro and Methadone in his body, and the death sent the distraught Anna Nicole into a downward spiral. For many years Daniel had been the only light in the model’s life, and now her little boy was gone, for reasons that remained too unexplained and confusing for the young woman to bear. During the funeral Anna demanded they open the casket and when her wishes were fulfilled, she shocked everyone by trying desperately to climb inside, insisting she wanted to go with her son to the afterlife. Unfortunately this was an episode from which Anna would never recover, and from then on her life seemed to be even more of a tragic roller-coaster than ever before.

  On 28 September, just eighteen days after the death of Daniel, Anna Nicole and Howard K. Stern took part in a commitment ceremony to each other in the Bahamas. Photographs of the event were beamed worldwide and people questioned not only the timing of the ceremony, so close to her son’s death, but also the genuineness of the love between the couple. Still, they assured people that their relationship was genuine and denied that it had been made in a bid to halt paternity charges brought by Larry Birkhead in relation to Dannielynn. So determined were they to stop Birkhead having access to the child that Stern even appeared on Larry King Live, declaring that he and Anna had been in a relationship for a long time and that the child was most certainly his own.

  The couple decided to settle permanently in the Bahamas; another decision apparently made to avoid the looming paternity tests that awaited them in the United States. Anna Nicole was happy to be a mother again, and caring for her daughter became the only bright spark in the last months of her life. Outwardly she seemed to be coping relatively well, considering, but once again this was an illusion and she was still so distraught at the death of Daniel that shortly after his death she was found floating face down in her swimming pool. She was saved by her partner, Howard K. Stern. She also started telling friends that she just could not get over the idea that Daniel was somehow calling to her from beyond the grave.

  “I dream of him every day and every night” she said, and added that she was frightened he was stuck in purgatory, lost and unsure where to go. “He comes to me in my sleep; he’s calling me to come to him,” she told Entertainment Tonight. She also became inconsolable when told that her estranged mother, Virgie, had been to visit Daniel’s grave. Anna claimed that her mother had only visited because she was paid by a magazine, and that she could not believe that the woman had decided to pay the visit on Daniel’s birthday. “It makes me sick to my stomach,” she cried.

  To add to her worries, it became apparent that Larry Birkhead – not surprisingly – was not going to stand by and watch his daughter being raised by another man. The stress became too much and she told friends that she didn’t know how long she could cope with it all. Her life was spiralling out of control. Having lost her son and now threatened with worry of losing her daughter too, Anna’s heart was broken; she had no more fight left.

  Tragically, on 8 February 2007, during a trip to Hollywood, Florida, Anna Nicole Smith was found unconscious in room 607 of the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. Friends and staff tried desperately to revive her, before paramedics arrived and rushed her to Memorial Regional Hospital. Paramedics were seen trying to save her as her body was wheeled into the ambulance, but unfortunately she could not be resuscitated and was pronounced dead on arrival, shortly before 3 p.m. It was later decided that Smith had died of an accidental drug overdose, with chloral hydrate being the major component. Other drugs were found in her system included Valiu
m and benzodiazepines but no illegal substances were discovered.

  As soon as Anna died, a legal battle raged to decide where she should – and should not – be buried. Howard K. Stern insisted she should be buried next to her son in the Bahamas, while her estranged mother Virgie wanted her back in Texas. Even Larry Birkhead became involved, and although it wasn’t related to the case at all, found himself answering questions about the paternity of Dannielynn. The real-life drama was beamed all over the world and Judge Larry Seidlin became famous not only for his one-liners during proceedings, but also for breaking down in tears on giving his verdict that he wanted to give custody of Anna’s remains to Richard Milstein, the lawyer for Dannielynn. He specifically wished for Anna to be buried with her son, Daniel: “I want them to be together,” he cried.

  Both he and Stern got their wish and Anna’s body was eventually buried next to that of her son, Daniel Smith. The ashes of her late husband J. Howard Marshall were also laid with her and a huge, black granite marker with photographs of Smith and her son was placed over the plot.

  Meanwhile, on 10 April 2007 the paternity case was finally resolved when it was declared that Larry Birkhead was indeed the father of Anna’s daughter. Dannielynn was handed over to her father in order to begin her new life in the United States. She paid tribute to her mother in November 2012 by becoming a model for Guess Jeans. Looking remarkably like Anna Nicole, the girl posed happily for the cameras, and her father later told reporters that it was entirely her decision to take part in the campaign – that she wanted her photograph on the Guess bags, just like her mother had done many years before her.

  While Howard K. Stern claimed to be the father of Dannielynn and took part in a commitment ceremony with the little girl’s mother, in the end he lost both and resigned himself to life without them. However, before he was able to move on completely, it was announced that he and other members of Smith’s entourage – her psychiatrist and her doctor – would be charged with “crimes of prescribing, administering and dispensing controlled substances to an addict”. There were also questions raised about whether or not there had been a conspiracy to use fake names in order to acquire drugs for Smith, and by the time the case went to court in August 2010, the media was once again full of Anna Nicole news, three and a half years after her sudden death.

  By the end of the trial, Smith’s doctor was acquitted of all charges, but Stern and the psychiatrist were found guilty and due to be sentenced in January 2011. When that day came the judge surprisingly decided that there was insufficient evidence to show that they intended to break the law and threw the case out of court. The only conviction that remained was a charge of fraud against the psychiatrist, though that was later reduced to a misdemeanour.

  This decision angered many fans who believed – rightly or wrongly – that Stern had something to do with Anna Nicole’s wild behaviour and the drug abuse which eventually led to her death. They were not the only ones, it would seem, as in October 2012 – two years after the initial guilty verdict – a California court made the decision that the judge had been wrong to throw out the case and that the convictions should be looked at again. Judge Robert Perry was then given the unenviable task of deciding what to do next: to consider Stern’s request for a new trial (which would mean that the original case would have to be dismissed as the new trial could constitute double jeopardy); to find another grounds for dismissal; or to sentence the former lawyer to prison or probation based on the original conviction. As of March 2013, no decision has been made as to what the outcome will be, though if the former court appearances of Anna Nicole Smith are anything to go by, the case could run and run.

  And what of Anna? Much has been said about her life and personality, though most of it is derogatory and untrue. Her life was so full of twists and turns that it is almost hard to believe it really happened. One thing that is not often reported, however, is that in spite of all the scandal and intrigue, she had a very big heart, lavishing her friends and children with attention and love in equal measure.

  She was also extremely generous to her fans, as demonstrated when she lived for a time at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive, the last home of her idol, Marilyn Monroe. She didn’t stay long, due to her son’s apparent distaste for the property, but while she was there Marilyn’s fans would often write and tell her how much the actress meant to them. Instead of ignoring the fan mail that came for her idol, she would often reply and send photographs of herself inside the home. These photos regularly appear on the internet, a testimony not only to how she appreciated her fans, but also how much she adored Marilyn Monroe.

  It is a tragedy that, in the end, the woman who wanted so much to be like Marilyn, who dressed in replica costumes and rented her home to be “close” to her idol, ended up passing away in a strikingly similar situation. But then, given her tragic life, perhaps that was always inevitable.

  55

  Michael Jackson, the Man from Neverland

  “The King of Pop”, “Wacko Jacko” . . . whatever you want to call him, the fact remains that Michael Jackson was one of the biggest pop superstars of the twentieth century. A dancer, singer, actor and all-round performer, he dazzled audiences across the globe with hits such as “Thriller”, “Bad” and “The Way You Make Me Feel”. However, it cannot be denied that away from the thrills of his music and stage presence, it was his personal life and death that caused the most sensation – and the circumstances of both are still furiously discussed and argued by fans today.

  Born on 29 August 1958, Jackson was the eighth of ten children born to Katherine and Joe Jackson. The family was raised in a small house in Indiana, where Michael’s father – who played in a band – had dreams of his children following in his footsteps. He got his wish, and in 1964 some of the brothers (including Michael) began performing together and eventually the Jackson Five (later the Jacksons) was born. The band was a huge success, signing to Motown and performing such hits as “I Want You Back” and “ABC”. But in spite of the success of the band itself, it was “Little Michael” that got the most attention, and ultimately, while still young, he ended up releasing several albums and singles as a solo artist, including “Ben” and “Rockin’ Robin”.

  Michael’s childhood was traumatic and he was constantly bothered by the fact that he was unable to have the regular upbringing enjoyed by other children. There was little – if any – time for playing with friends, visiting the park or riding his bike in the street. Instead, the children were all expected to practise their dance routines day and night, under the everwatchful eye of their father Joseph.

  In several later interviews Michael claimed that his father would become emotionally and physically abusive while supervising rehearsals. He also said that as a child he was exceptionally lonely and often watched other children playing outside the building where he was working, unable to go down and take part because he had to record his latest single or album. Added to that, it is also said that the child was told on numerous occasions that he had a big nose and spots; a result of which – it would seem – was the obsession Jackson developed with undertaking plastic surgery procedures during the latter part of his life.

  By the time he was a fully grown adult, Michael Jackson had the world of pop at his feet. A phenomenal superstar, his albums with the Jacksons were still huge hits, but he was ready to branch off on his own. He made a film – a box-office disaster – called The Wiz (1978) and then in 1979 he released his own album, Off the Wall, which went on to sell a staggering twenty million copies and introduced the world to a more mature Michael Jackson. More albums followed, including the astronomically successful Thriller in 1982 and Bad in 1987. He also toured the world extremely successfully, but while his professional life was nothing short of amazing, his personal life was heading towards disaster.

  In January 1984 Jackson had been filming an advert for Pepsi Cola, when some pyrotechnics set his hair on fire. Footage of the episode shows Jackson dancing without realizing that his head is ab
laze, and finding out too late to prevent second-degree burns to his scalp. This seems to have been a real turning point for the singer, and as a result he undertook various plastic surgery procedures and began taking tablets to ease the pain. Unfortunately, it would seem that this was to be his undoing, and Michael Jackson never truly recovered from the trauma inflicted that day.

  After that tragic episode, certain elements of Jackson’s life began to develop in ways that outsiders may describe as somewhat odd. He owned a chimpanzee – Bubbles – which slept in a crib by his bed and travelled the world with him on a private jet. Not only that, but it was also reported that it did everything with the singer – from watching movies in a private cinema to sitting at the table to eat his dinner. This seems to have been the start of the “Wacko Jacko” era; the media absolutely loved the Bubbles stories and rumours, and photographed the pair together at every opportunity.

  It was not just fun stories being reported in the media, though. By summer 1993, rumours of a very different kind were circulating that involved Jackson being accused of the sexual abuse of a thirteen-year-old boy named Jordan Chandler. Money was said to have been demanded by the family of the boy, which Jackson refused to give, and then the matter of the alleged abuse was reported to the police. By Christmas 1993 Jackson’s home had been investigated and the singer had been strip-searched. Jackson released a video statement, protesting his innocence. “Don’t treat me like a criminal,” he begged, and asked the media to wait for the truth before labelling him. “I am innocent,” he said.