Larry Birkhead is going to star with baby daughter Dannielynn in a reality TV show about their day to day life.

Larry Birkhead and his daughter with late Anna Nicole Smith will reportedly star in a reality show about 1-year-old Dannielynn being raised without her mother.

According to reports Birkhead was flooded with TV offers after Smith died and he gained custody of Dannielynn. “I don’t want to give away something yet. It’s basically the ‘day in the life of duties,’” Birkhead was quoted as saying.

“My daughter is my focus now. I’m being a great dad. She’s teething. She’s got about eight teeth. Everything is great with her. She comps on me every day. All she has to worry about is her Barney video,” Birkhead says.

TransWorldNews

Howard K. Stern has also been busy, serving legal papers to Rita Cosby at a Manhattan party for her book Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith’s Death. The papers are suing her for libel, mostly focused around the allegations that Larry Birkhead and Howard K. Stern were gay lovers. Rita’s evidence of this is a supposed tape of their encounter. In this video, Rita says she stands by her claims ’120%’, but quickly leaves when reporters ask her to reveal her sources. The link is NSFW as it has Anna Nicole’s ‘death photos’. Obviously someone who stands by her claims 120% doesn’t have maths as their strong suit – I wonder if she’s worked out how many copies of her book she gonna need to shift to pay $US60 million to Howard K. Stern?

Virgie Arthur has also been seen out and about – at Rita Cosby’s book launch! Who would want to see that book published about their daughter?

I’m not a big fan of Anna Nicole Smith, her mother, either of her former male companions or Rita Cosby, all of them seem mostly interested in cashing in on her notoriety. At least Larry Birkhead has an excuse – to a point – in that he is a single father raising her baby.

The pictures of Anna Nicole dead (that we know were fakes) are now being claimed as Anna Nicole having a bit of fun. Rather than her being intoxicated, Howard K. Stern told Entertainment Tonight that the pictures were just of Anna Nicole eating a fish sandwich and having fun with the camera when she got tartar sauce on her face.

You know, there are some really unflattering pictures of me out there, but none this bad. At least I’m not naked, eating KFC, and missing my mouth.

I’m no giant Larry Birkhead fan, nor am I at all a Howard K Stern fan, but I gotta say that sometimes there are really justified lawsuits, and this sure sounds like one. Rita Cosby – the former MSNBC anchorwoman with a voice that reminds you of running across playground gravel – wrote a book titled “Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith’s Death” in which she accused Howard K Stern and Larry Birkhead of being gay lovers. Now I can’t deny that Birkhead has a bit of a case of “gay face” as Perez Hilton calls it – but her accusations seem like complete horseshit. From pretty much every opinion we’ve ever head, Stern was freakishly obsessed with Anna Nicole, and desperately in love with her. I know we could make a lot of arguments, but sometimes, you can just tell something is pure bullshit, and Cosby is one of them. I’m probably tainted by the fact that I have an intense loathing for the woman – has anyone ever suggested she try clearing her throat? It could do wonders for the voice. There’s just something about her that always struck me as hackish and desperate, and she never seemed like a real reporter. She was all over the Anna Nicole mess – and I know we’re not ones to criticize, but hey, we don’t work for MSNBC either.

So Howard Stern has sued Cosby for libel – and though I don’t like him, I hope he takes every sent that crazy woman has.

“Usmagazine.com confirms that former Anna Nicole Smith lawyer Howard K. Stern has sued journalist Rita Cosby for libel. Stern’s lawyer Lin Wood tells Us, ‘The libel lawsuit was filed this afternoon in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against Rita Cosby and her publisher, Hachette Book Group USA.’

“The lawsuit, which was first reported by CelebTV.com, asks for $60 million dollars in compensatory and punitive damages.

“Former MSNBC anchor Cosby is the author of Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith’s Death. In the book, she writes that Stern, 38, and Larry Birkhead, Smith’s former lover and the father of her daughter, Dannielynn, engaged in homosexual acts, which were caught on tape. Further, the book alleges that Stern and Birkhead struck a deal — Birkhead would get custody of Dannielynn in exchange for Stern being named executor of Smith’s estate.

“Before the book’s release, Birkhead, 34, told Us of Cosby’s claims, ‘If this book is not sitting next to Harry Potter on the fiction shelf, then Rita Cosby is going to be wrapped in one of the most expensive lawsuits ever.’”

[From Us Magazine]

Considering all of the gay love accusations in Cosby’s book were based on this supposed tape of Stern and Birkhead going at it, that woman better be able to produce a tape. On the other hand, I really don’t believe a tape exists – as a lawyer, I doubt Stern would risk a lawsuit that would likely force such a tape to be played. Would he really expose himself to that? Probably not. Like I said, I think Rita Cosby’s a hack and full of shit. She got canned by MSNBC and went out drinking and partying and dancing on bars all over Manhattan afterwards. I’m a total current events junkie, and can tell you everything you never needed to know about almost every cable journalist out there. And Rita Cosby couldn’t cut it, so she wrote some crap-ass book to try to get herself a little publicity. Congratulations Rita. Now you’ll lose every penny of that $48,000 MSNBC probably paid you.

Picture Note by Jaybird: Here’s Rita Cosby and her “the frog in my throat ate some gravel” voice. Just listen for 30 seconds to get the point, but no longer – I don’t want any of you to suffer hearing loss… or nightmares. Images thanks to PR Photos.

Debra Opri, the lawyer who supposedly (and likely) agreed to represent Larry Birkhead pro bono, is suing Birkhead for $600,000 legal bill. Opri had agreed to represent Birkhead in exchange for the publicity his custody battle with Anna Nicole Smith would give her (depending on who’s side you believe). It’s hard to believe that Birkhead would have entered into a traditional contract with a lawyer who was going to charge him the standard exorbitant rates, consider that a lot of lawyers would have loved to represent him in the publicity-generating trial. But Opri says Birkhead owes her $600,000, and is also suing Birkhead for defamation. There is a ton of animosity between the two, and following their own little case can be a little complicated.

“She sued Dannielynn’s dad for defamation Monday, claiming that he has engaged in a ‘malicious and relentless media campaign to discredit me and to destroy my reputation,’ according to a statement from Opri released to E! Online. The plaintiff [Opri] said, however, that all proceeds from the suit will go to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

“‘My primary concern has always been for a child named Dannielynn…It is my belief and my strong conviction that no child should be exploited in any manner,’ she said. After petitioning a judge to order Birkhead into arbitration to settle his unpaid $600,000 legal bill for the six months of services she provided him during his paternity battle with Anna Nicole Smith, Birkhead filed his own lawsuit against the Los Angeles attorney, accusing her of fraud and legal malpractice.

The Kentucky-born and L.A.-based photographer claimed that Opri, after originally agreeing to represent him pro bono in exchange for all the publicity she was going to receive from the case, amassed a list of frivolous expenses that she expected him to pay for.”

[From E! Online]

So far the judge seems to be siding with Birkhead, denying many of Opri’s motions. It seems like she’s just angry and vindictive about her departure (firing) from a case that can only be described as a media whore’s wet dream.

“Birkhead also accused Opri of hanging onto at least $800,000 of a $1 million paycheck he received in exchange for a series of media appearances following Smith’s death. The money still in Opri’s client-trust account has since been frozen and placed in an interest-bearing account, pending the conclusion of these proceedings, and she lost her bid for mediation earlier this month after L.A. Superior Court Judge Charles C. Lee ruled that her contract with Birkhead did not call for binding arbitration.

“She also failed to address her former client’s allegations of fraud, breach of fiduciary duty and conversion, Lee said. But Opri is now suggesting that Birkhead had ulterior motives for trying to get the drop on her in court.

“‘It is clear now that Mr. Birkhead’s attempts to discredit me concerned what I knew and what might be exposed publicly…and not a legal bill,’ Opri said. ‘With the recent release of the Rita Cosby book, Blonde Ambition, Mr. Birkhead’s attacks have escalated to include false and malicious allegations that I was a source for the book.’”

[From E! Online]

It sort of sounds like she’s saying that she knew about the alleged Larry Birkhead/Howard K Stern male lovefest, or at least knew it details of it were going to be published. Apparently Rita Cosby introduced Birkhead to Opri, which seems very, very odd to me. Especially because that implies that at some point Rita Cosby and Larry Birkhead were on good enough terms that she was making legal recommendations to him, and he was listening. Very bizarre. I’m no lawyer, but I’m guessing she won’t win the lawsuit. It just seems so unlikely that Birkhead would have hired her if she planned on charging him her regular rates. I’m sure he knew the custody fight would be long and arduous and thus very expensive. He certainly wasn’t a rich man, pre-Anna Nicole Smith. Why would he agree to have a lawyer for pay when he could have a lawyer for free?

It’s far overdue, but the Bahamas will finally conduct their inquest into the death of Anna Nicole Smith’s son Daniel. Daniel died three days after Smith gave birth to her second child, daughter Dannielynn. The circumstances were very suspicious – no one can argue the terrible timing in giving birth to one child and losing one just a few days later in the same hospital room. It’s beyond tragic. There was a lot of suspicion floating around regarding Smith’s “boyfriend”/ “life partner” (I put them both in quotes because few people believe that he was actually either of those things to Smith) Howard K Stern. Some people just have that evil look about them, and it’s pretty clear that Stern wears that particular haircut to hide the stubs from the devil horns he had cosmetically reduced a few years ago.

“The long-awaited inquest in the Bahamas into the death of the son of former Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith will begin on October 30, and could last two months, a senior judge in the Bahamas said on Monday.

“Bahamas Chief Magistrate Roger Gomez said at least 35 witnesses were expected to give evidence, including Smith’s longtime lawyer and companion, Howard K. Stern. The inquest would be conducted by Magistrate William Campbell, he added.

“Smith’s son, Daniel, 20, died at Doctors Hospital, Nassau, on September 10 last year, just three days after his mother gave birth to a daughter, Dannielynn. A private autopsy found he had a cocktail of drugs in his bloodstream. An official inquest by Bahamian authorities has been repeatedly postponed.”

[From the Washington Post]

Smith was supposedly worried that Stern had something to do with Daniel’s death. Aren’t we all. Ex-MSNBC reporter Rita Cosby (the one with the voice that made mute buttons feel relevant again) says in her book that Smith had some serious worries about Stern. Keep in mind, though, that this is the same book the alleges Stern and baby-daddy Larry Birkhead were gay lovers.

“In her most desperate moments, Anna Nicole Smith feared that her lawyer boyfriend Howard K. Stern played a role in her only son’s death, a new book alleges. Former employees of the ex-stripper claim they heard her screaming at Stern, ‘You did this! You killed him! You caused this!’ as the couple waited for the coroner to determine how Daniel Smith died in 2006, the book says. The allegations are detailed in the tell-all Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith’s Death by former NBC journalist Rita Cosby.”

[From the Baltimore Sun]

I remember hearing that quote circulating through the media quite a while ago, and I guess it’s still popping up. People yell a lot of nonsensical, crazy things when they’re distraught. But they also can say true things that they’d otherwise keep to themselves, so it’s hard to say exactly what that was in reference to. It will be interesting to see what they finally rule in Daniel’s death, and exactly how this sort of inquest works in the Bahamas, and what – if anything – it’ll lead to.

Just when you started to hope that Larry Birkhead would quietly fade into obscurity after throwing an obscene party for Dannielynn’s first birthday comes news that he’s trying to cling to the last vestiges of fame with the double-edged sword of infamy only used by the most desperate and clueless of the lower celebrity echelon – the reality TV show:

Meet Larry, a wacky bachelor who suddenly becomes a single father to a baby worth a fortune. And like a modern day Beverly Hillbilly, Larry leaves his humble home for the bright lights of Los Angeles where all sorts of hilarity ensues.

Custody battles. Lawsuits. Gay allegations. Y’all come back now, ya hear!

Larry Birkhead is no Jed Clampett – but he is about to get his own TV show, The Enquirer has learned exclusively.

The still unnamed reality show project is under development at the E! Network. It will focus on Larry and 1-year-old baby Dannielynn’s life after Anna Nicole Smith’s death, according to a TV insider…

“Larry’s on the verge of signing with E! for a show that could be on the air by next spring,” a Hollywood source told The Enquirer.

[From National Enquirer, print edition, September 24, 2007]

And new allegations by one of Birkhead’s ex bodyguards about his money-seeking behavior make it clear that, just the deceased mother of his child, he’ll do anything and everything to make a buck and keep his picture in the glossies.

The bodyguard claims that Birkhead asked photographers from Splash news to come to Daniel’s grave with him on Daniel’s birthday, where he pretended to be upset.

Anna’s much-hated mother, Virgie Arthur, incidentally also worked with Splash to get paid for exclusive pictures while she was in the Bahamas after Anna died. She was rumored to have brought Splash photographers into the morgue with her for the pictures of dead Anna that were published in the Enquirer. Splash seemed to confirm that those pictures were real in a teaser post on their blog saying they had obtained pictures of the dead tabloid queen.

Anyway Larry wasn’t quite distraught enough for the Splash paparrazzi, who told him to do another take, then another, until the photos were just right:

Mark Speer said he was guarding Birkhead in the Bahamas when Birkhead called Splash News, a paparazzi and tabloid news agency.

Speer, 53, told us: “Larry and I went to Nassau for over a week in January of this year. One day he said he wanted to go to Daniel’s grave, ostensibly to pay tribute to him on his birthday. But it turned out he had another idea. He said, ‘We’re going to meet two guys from Splash.’

“They had arranged to wait in some bushes at the cemetery. They took pictures of Larry pretending to be sad and emotional at the grave site. Only the Splash guys weren’t quite satisfied, so they asked him to do it again, and for me to get out of the picture. We did three takes. That was the first sign to me that Larry was in it for the money.” When police were investigating Daniel’s death, Speer says, “I was in the room when he gave the police a statement.” He claims that Birkhead alleged to authorities that Smith’s attorney Howard K. Stern “was wiring money from Anna’s estate to offshore accounts and that he’d forged her signature.” Birkhead also claimed he’d “watched Howard giving [Smith] drugs,” Speer says.

[From NY Daily News]

Other allegations from the bodyguard include the already-rumored story that Larry and Howard K Stern worked out a deal in which Larry would get custody of Dannielynn while Howard would remain the executor of Anna’s potential 1/2 billion estate.

He also claims to have seen pictures of Anna in bed with her new baby in the hospital – along with her son Daniel, who was already dead at the time. The picture are supposedly in the possession of a friend of Anna’s.

Larry Birkhead is said to have received $600k from the photo rights to Dannielynn’s first birthday, and now that he’s set to get his own reality show he’s not going to go away or stop making money any time soon.

A woman known for marrying an 89 year-old guy, being a ditz and flashing her boobs dies young, and she makes a handful of other people famous. We’re the ones feeding this cycle by even paying attention to them. At least Larry is easy on the eyes and seems like a decent guy, even if he’s getting paid every which way he can. He was working as a celebrity photographer when he met Anna, he knows how to work the tabloids.

Larry is shown at the Bourne Ultimatum LA Premiere on 7/27/07 thanks to PRPhotos. His eyes are beautiful, and if he’s wearing colored contact lenses they’re not that noticeable.

Virgie Arthur visited Anna Nicole and her son Daniel’s grave to mark the first anniversary of his death. The anniversary of his death is the day after kid sister Dannielynn’s birthday, and Virgie is upset no one from her side of the family was invited, saying “there wasn’t anybody there from Vickie’s [Anna Nicole's birth name was Vickie Lynn Hogan] side of the family”.

Larry Birkhead hit back.

“She doesn’t want to be a grandmother, she wants to be a money manager,” he said. “She can continue to play poor-pitiful-me games to anyone who’ll listen, I’m not buying it.

“Dannielynn has [paternal] grandmothers who are all supportive, you don’t see them dragging me through every courthouse.”

Birkhead also told E! Online that Arthur had ample opportunities to get to know her granddaughter in the wake of his winning custody this spring, but she didn’t seem nearly as interested when there wasn’t a video camera documenting her grandmotherly intentions.

“She stood me up for a Sunday visitation,” he said. “I waited all day, and she didn’t show up or call. Then a few weeks later, I get a note: ‘How’s the baby? Is she getting her first tooth?’

“She had two teeth when she was sitting in front of her in the lawyer’s office. A good grandmother would remember whether her granddaughter’s got teeth or not. She’d also remember to call and come over for a visitation that she scheduled…She can’t remember to call me for visitation, but she can remember to file papers in the courthouse about me.”

E! Online

Virgie also claimed to be the only one to visit the graves of Anna Nicole and grandson Daniel on the anniversary, but Anna’s other ex Howard K. Stern had this to say in response.

“I visited Anna and Daniel twice yesterday under the cover of darkness because I did not want the media to capture my private moments with loved ones. In the early morning, I brought two baskets of flowers from Dannielynn, myself, and others. When I visited again late at night, I found plastic flowers drilled into the ground next to our flowers.

I did not want to take pictures or release any statement concerning my visits. However, Anna’s birth mother brought Splash News with her to the cemetery (or was it the other way around?) and then claimed in an interview that nobody visited Anna and Daniel.

Unfortunately, I have learned to anticipate this type of exploitative expression of alleged love and took the necessary precautions. I sincerely hope that Splash News has the decency not to make this a pattern for all future anniversaries, birthdays, and holidays.

As in the past, I am not profiting from these pictures or this statement in any manner.”

TMZ

The man certainly can make a powerful statement. No wonder Anna Nicole wanted him for a lawyer.

This saga seems like it’s going to go on forever. While Larry Birkhead doesn’t seem shy about making money from Dannielynn’s pictures, at least he isn’t as crazy as Virgie. This is the woman who has two children named Junior, one with her stepbrother, and just doesn’t seem to be able to accept her loss of cash – whoops, I mean custody – gracefully. If she just acted like a civilized person she probably wouldn’t have visitation rights, she could just visit the kid like a regular grandmother.

Picture note by Celebitchy: Here are pictures of the cemetery where Anna is buried, which were published earlier. Thanks to FindaGrave.com. The above picture is an older one of her grave.

Just when you thought the Anna Nicole story couldn’t get any weirder and/or was over come fresh allegations from an upcoming book about the tragic life of the drug-addicted former Playboy model. OK! Magazine claimed that it had some explosive news about Larry Birkhead, the man who fathered a child with Anna and is now caring for the infant. Since Birkhead may have screwed OK! out of an exclusive photoshoot with the coveted infant, we didn’t think anything they would have to say about him would be all that objective.

It sounded like OK! was going to claim that Larry and Howard K Stern, Anna Nicole’s lawyer and creepy hanger-on, reached some kind of deal outside the courts on the handover of the baby. According to the upcoming book, not only did they make a deal that Birkhead would care for the baby while Stern would continue to control Anna’s estate, they were gay lovers during Anna’s life and she knew about it. If this is true it would explain how they all were able to get along despite both having a supposed romantic interest in Anna:

The bombshell allegations about the steamy relationship between the former Playboy Playmate’s longtime companion Howard K. Stern and her baby’s biological father, Larry Birkhead, come to light in “Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith’s Death.”

Sordid passages in the soon-to-be released book by former MSNBC journalist Rita Cosby describe how Anna Nicole and her friend allegedly caught Stern and Birkhead with their shirts off and their pants around their ankles in a Los Angeles home.

Jackie Hatten, described in the book as one of Anna Nicole’s closest friends, said the men were engaged in oral sex.

“Their bodies were intermingled,” Hatten says, according to a copy of the book obtained by the Daily News. “It was obvious what was happening.”

The shocking book accuses Birkhead and Stern of cutting a secret deal after Anna Nicole was buried in March, with Birkhead getting custody of Dannielynn in return for Stern being named executor of the star’s estate.

Dannielynn, who turns 1 on Friday, could inherit hundreds of millions of dollars from the estate of Smith’s late husband, oil tycoon Howard Marshall.

Birkhead and a lawyer for Stern both vehemently denied the accusations in Cosby’s book yesterday – and vowed to drag her into court, setting the stage for an ugly legal battle.

[NY Daily News]

Birkhead says he’s going to sue the author, Rita Skeeter Cosby, for making such inflammatory claims about him. Both he and Stern deny that they’re true.

There have been rumors that Birkhead was gay or bi for some time. A guy told The National Enquirer back in April that he had a torrid two month affair with Birkhead in 2000.

Anna is said to have known that these two were lovers and to have wanted a baby so badly that she picked Birkhead because he was blonde and blue-eyed. If this is true, something must have gone wrong with Stern and Birkhead’s relationship, because Birkhead was cut out of Anna’s life after she was a few months pregnant and they seemed genuinely pissed at each other. Maybe Stern wanted more control of Anna and her expected hundreds of millions, was threatened by Birkhead’s status as the father, and made sure that Birkhead was out of the picture.

The book paints a lecherous picture of Stern, known for hanging all over Anna Nicole and long suspected to have not only enabled but to have encouraged her addiction to a medicine cabinet full of prescription drugs.

Stern is portrayed in Cosby’s book as a jealous, money-grabbing control freak who manipulates the erratic blond beauty’s celebrity status for his own financial gain.

As her life spun out of control after the death of her son, Daniel, last September, Stern kept Anna Nicole hidden from friends and forced the heavily drugged model to sign stacks of paperwork, the book claims.

His alleged “goodie bag” of meds – including Vicodin, Valium, morphine and Demerol – were never far from reach.

“He was the pharmacist and [the bag] was the drugstore,” Anna Nicole’s ex-boyfriend Ben Thompson told Cosby.

[NY Daily News]

I could see these two being lovers, but if anyone is responsible for Anna’s bizarre death it’s Stern, not Birkhead. Birkhead wasn’t around for a reason and even if he may have liked guys too he seemed genuinely fond of Anna to me and to be concerned about how her drug addiction would affect their baby. Anna’s campy personality must have attracted a lot of people of ambiguous sexual orientation.

This book may bring renewed interest into the suspicious circumstances leading up to Anna’s untimely death. Stern was found not responsible for Anna’s demise, but given how he enabled her drug addiction and how his response to her death seemed anything but natural, he shouldn’t have gotten away so easily. He may have even had something to do with the death of her son, Daniel.

Larry Birkhead had some kind of deal with OK! Magazine for photos and stories about his life with Dannielynn, the daughter of the late Anna Nicole Smith. OK! thinks he screwed them by letting US Weekly have the photos and story on Dannielynn’s first birthday and they’re pissed. After paying him $1.7 million and doing him a bunch of favors, they’re not about to let him get away without spreading some nasty gossip about him.

OK! editors claim to have some shocking news about Birkhead, implying that he made a deal with the guy who first claimed to be Anna Nicole’s baby daddy, Howard K Stern. Unless he’s thought to have plotted to kill Anna, I don’t see how it can be all that scandalous. Maybe they’re going to claim that they made a deal for the handover of the baby and that there was money involved:

The magazine’s publicist said: “OK! Magazine has uncovered explosive allegations regarding Larry Birkhead, Howard K. Stern and baby Danielynn, prompting the magazine to cancel our exclusive coverage of Danielynn’s first birthday party.”

“The newly obtained allegations are detailed, shocking and potentially incriminating. It makes it impossible for OK!, in good conscience, to promote this family’s highly questionable relationship in our pages.”

Both were locked in a paternity battle over the child before DNA tests claimed to prove Birkhead as the father following the death of Anna Nicole.

OK’s American editor Sarah Ivens said: “My biggest fear is that Larry and Howard may have tricked us all.”

[From the Daily Mail]

Larry says OK! forced his hand, though, by threatening him not to go to a rival glossy after he was on the cover of US with Dannielynn. He said that was bullshit:

Birkhead, who says he didn’t play ball with Us, wrote an email to OK! in which he said, “I was just threatened via email by (the reporter) that OK! would do a negative story on me if I did any stories with any other mags. Ridiculous!!! I am not sure what planet she’s on but I am not going to be threatened. She blew it!”

OK! thought they had a “four-part deal” with Birkhead, while Birkhead thought he had an agreement with them for just the first photos of his daughter once he was awarded custody.

Either way, whatever crap they’ve got on Larry Birkhead can’t really be trusted considering that they’ve got an axe to grind.

It really makes you lose faith in the integrity of the gossip industry when someone can smear the good name of a doting father like Larry Birkhead over a measly couple of million.

In what I guess is a show of class, Superior Court Judge Mitchell L. Beckloff has barred the release of a video of Anna Nicole Smith’s breast augmentation surgery, made in 1994. The request came from her former “boyfriend”/ former attorney/executor of her will, Howard K. Stern. Stern claimed that the doctor taped the operation without Smith’s consent, and he sent it to a Los Angeles memorabilia dealer, Thomas Riccio.

“The surgeon, Surgeon Gerald Wayne Johnson, said he routinely recorded surgeries with the patient’s permission and promised to keep the video confidential ‘during the patient’s lifetime’.

“Dr Johnson said he gave Mr Riccio permission to use the video after Smith died.

“Mr Stern claimed Dr Johnson’s wife and Mr Riccio would share any proceeds from the sale of the video to media outlets.“

[From the Melbourne Herald Sun]

Ew. Just ew. I wish I had something more intelligent to say, but this story makes my visceral reactions take over. Aren’t people done feeding off of Anna Nicole Smith yet? I’m not saying the woman was an upstanding pillar of the community or anything, but you can tell she wasn’t exactly smart enough to protect herself against some of the more unscrupulous people that surrounded her in life. She certainly wasn’t above selling her private family moments and personal medical procedures for a little bit of cash. Remember Celebitchy’s story in November ’06 when Anna Nicole sold her C-section video to “Entertainment Tonight” for $1 million?
I still think it’s sad that people are still trying to take advantage of her. She’s not here to say “Go ahead and see my bob job surgery,” or not. Though with that c-section incident, I guess it’s hard to say for sure if she’d put the kibosh on it. The woman was certainly a riddle. A simple one, more like a knock knock joke, yet a riddle nonetheless.

In other Anna Nicole news, remember that batshit crazy judge who presided over the trial regarding custody of Smith’s body in Florida. Well, Judge Larry Seidlin will be coming to a television near you pretty soon.

“Judge Larry Seidlin, the wisecracking, emotional judge from the Anna Nicole Smith case, is shooting a pilot for his own TV show, ‘Access Hollywood’ has learned.

“The show will be produced by CBS Paramount. No other details were available.

“The lampooning purveyor of justice (dubbed Sideshow Seidlin by the media for his courtroom antics) announced his resignation from the bench in June amid speculation he was negotiating a deal for his own show.

“At the time of his resignation, Seidlin sent a letter to Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, stating ‘it is now time for me to devote more of my daily life to my own young family and to pursue the many opportunities that have been offered to me outside the judicial system and I have disregarded until now.’

“Seidlin, 56, is a former New York cab driver who presided on the bench for nearly 29 years.”

[From MSNBC.com]

I wonder if that guy was always a mental case, or if he just put it on for Smith’s trial. He had a bit too much of that infamous New York phenomenon known as the “philosopher cabbie” thing going on. You know, a lot of dispensing more advice than you needed, and more personal information than you ever asked for. Plus that whole thing where he referred to each of the lawyers by their respective states really bothered me. “Shut up California!” “Your motion is denied South Dakota.” Alright I don’t think there really was a South Dakota lawyer there, but you get the point. Seidlin was clearly longing for greener pastures from the moment he was assigned the case. Though his ruling actually was legally sound and made a lot of sense. But I don’t want to give him too much credit, because I think he was just made a good ruling by chance. I don’t think any drawn-out logic went into his decision. So good lucky, Larry Seidlin. I hope your show fails and you have to slink back to Florida with your head in your hands, and your pants around your ankles. Just because that would be extra funny.

Anna Nicole Smith’s funeral went on as planned today in the Bahamas despite her mother’s last-minute legal ploy to try to put a stop to it and have her daughter buried in Texas. Not only did Anna Nicole Smith’s mother continue her fight to bury her daughter somewhere else on the day of her funeral, but the father of Anna’s deceased son Daniel had his lawyer send a request to the Chief Magistrate of the Bahamas asking to have Daniel’s body exhumed and moved to Texas. It’s unclear whether the request was related to Anna’s mother’s fight for the body.

Howard K. Stern and Larry Birkhead, who are legally disputing custody of Anna’s child but seem to have reconciled after she died, arrived separately and were seen embracing inside. Anna’s mother was one of the last people to make it to the ceremony, and was met by boos from the crowd gathered outside.

About 100 people attended the funeral while curious onlookers, photographers and news crew clamored for a glimpse of Anna’s send off. It wasn’t cheap for press to get inside the gated community where the church was located. Camera crews were required to submit requests to cover the event and to pay a fee of $2,000 per camera and $5,000 per live feed.

Howard K. Stern says that the funeral was set up according to Anna’s wishes and that “she did have a lot of specific things that she wanted” Anna wore a pink beaded dress she had custom made specifically for her funeral in a prescient or wishful moment, and was donned with a tiara. Pink flowers decorated the church. Her casket was draped with a pink velvet fabric dripping with pink ribbons and feathers. Bobby Trendy wanted to hot glue them on, but according to her wishes he was denied.

Anna’s casket made it to the graveyard at about 1:30 PM EST. She was buried next to her son and with an urn containing some of the ashes of her late second husband J. Howard Marshall, the billionaire octagenarian whose money she was still fighting for when she died.

Howard K. Stern’s eulogy focused on Anna’s “truth,” and how he had a real relationship with her and will miss her. He said she was a smart woman who knew what it took to be famous.

Country singer Joe Nichols sang two songs requested by Howard K. Stern for the funeral, “I’ll Wait for You” and her favorite country song, Dolly Parton’s “Wings of a Dove.”

Anna’s infant daughter Dannielynn was not at the service.

The coroner who examined Anna says that he will be able to come up with a final determination of death within nine or ten days. Another medical examiner, the one Anna hired to examine Daniel independently, says that he doesn’t believe methadone was involved in her death. If he didn’t do the autopsy, it sounds like speculation to me.

Pictures from Entertainment Tonight.

Update: The word “tacky” in the title has been removed. The rest of the article was pretty neutral.