Paternity Mystery
Would the real Dad please stand up? That was the question many were asking after the tragic death of Anna Nicole Smith in February, 2007. As if her battle over her late husband’s multimillion dollar estate wasn’t enough grist for the rumor mill, the question of paternity arose over baby girl Dannielynn.
It took a court ordered paternity test to finally solve the puzzle – DNA proved that Larry Birkhead is the biological father of Anna Nicole Smith’s baby born in September 2006. Paternity had been settled once and for all.
But it was a windy road to get to the bottom of the paternity question. Anna Nicole Smith herself publicly claimed the father was Howard K. Stern, her lawyer and companion. Stern publicly claimed paternity on the Larry King show.
Oh, and then there was Anna Nicole’s earlier statement that Gaither Ben Thompson was the father. Thompson, a wealthy real estate developer claimed that could not be true since he had had a vasectomy. There are rumors that Anna Nicole herself then told Thompson that she thought Larry Birkhead was the father.
The paternity question didn’t stop there though. Remember the bodyguard, Alex Denk? He claimed paternity too. Another suggestion came from Anna Nicole’s mother who thought that paternity might be traced through frozen donated sperm from Anna Nicole’s 89 year old husband, J. Howard Marshall.
There were others who thought they could be the father of the child, yikes, one being O.J. Simpson. Even Prince Frederic von Anhalt, husband of Zsa Zsa Gabor gave up a blood sample for DNA testing because according to the Prince, he too could be the father.
No wonder it took DNA and a legal battle to settle the paternity puzzle.
