By now, there's probably not a person left in the United States that doesn't know that Anna Nicole Smith died this past Thursday afternoon at the age of 39. For the past four days, we've been bombarded by report after report about the young woman's life and death. We've seen countless pictures of her as a child, a teenager, and then as a wife, mother and girlfriend. Along with those pictures, we've heard the accounts of her rags to riches life, and the stories surrounding her son's death and her daughter's birth. Yesterday afternoon, I even saw a heinous picture of the EMS paramedics performing CPR as they were putting her lifeless body into the ambulance Thursday afternoon. I shouldn't have given in, but somehow I had to pause from flipping channels on the remote to watch the news clip.
By now, we all know her whole life story - how she married young and had a son, divorced and then worked at a strip club to pay the bills. We know it was at the strip club where she met the billionaire Howard Marshall, and we know she married him when she was 26 and he was 88. Marshall died 14 months later, and didn't leave a dime to Nicole in his will. He claimed she was more interested in shopping then in fulfilling her wifely duties. She sued for half of her husband's estate. The court case lasted longer than the marriage, and the courts said that she should get $88.5 million - a fraction of his billion dollar net worth.
We know that Anna Nicole made money as the spokesperson for TrimSpa diet pills and Guess jeans, and I'm sure received a pretty good check for posing nude in Playboy. She also filed for bankruptcy in 1996. She was known as a diehard partier, and overdosed twice. During the past few days, we saw her mother talk about how she begged her to quit using drugs, but to no avail. During the past few days, we also heard about how those drugs are possibly what took her life. It's eery how similar she was to her idol, Marilyn Monroe.
Friday morning, I watched an interview with Anna Nicole's mother. She said she was forever talking to her daughter about getting so much negative publicity. Nicole told her "Mama, don't worry about me being in the news. Good or bad, I get money." And I guess she was right, even though it seemed she got more negative press coverage than positive. Out of all of the video clips I saw of Anna Nicole Smith this weekend, I only saw one where she seemed happy - it was filmed at a farm she bought in the mid 90's. She was riding a horse, and taking care of a couple of baby calves and she seemed truly happy. The rest of the times I've seen pictures and video clips of her, she seemed to tortured and troubled. Maybe now she finally is at peace.
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