Larry Birkhead might have a baby in debt, but he can sell his story for about 5 million


Larry Birkhead is saddled with ridiculous legal fees from his old lawyer to the tune of over 600k. Deborah Opri is said to have charged Birkhead unnecessary fees including $1,500 a month for her publicist and a $600 lobster dinner that Birkhead wasn’t even present for.

While Birkhead deals with paying off his debt, his daughter Dannielynn Hope Marshall might not ever be eligible for the 1/2 billion her mother died fighting for from her second husband. The National Ledger quotes a legal expert as saying the case is likely to be thrown out now that Anna has passed. It is thought that the baby will also be left with mounting legal debt like her newly-discovered father.

Unlike the other characters in the paternity case, Birkhead has come off as earnestly wanting to reunite with his baby daughter and her inheritance doesn’t seem like it means everything to him. Indeed, he has other ways to make expensive ends meet. The combined print and TV rights to Birkhead’s story of his relationship with the late drug addict Anna Nicole and his subsequent paternity fight are said to be worth about $5 million. Given all the interviews he gave to the tabloid TV shows, he’s sure to sell it while the story still remains lukewarm:

Gawker says that the story will undoubtedly portray him as this earnest good guy fighting for his daughter, but reminds us that he’s a paparrazo after all, and is completely in control of his public image:

Both the print and TV deals will undoubtedly continue to perpetuate the story line that Birkhead has been writing all along—that of the good Southern boy, the wronged baby daddy who just wanted to be with his little girl. Birkhead has set himself up in conscious opposition to Howard K. Stern, who’s been painted (not necessarily wrongly!) as a money-hungry predator, while Birkhead has perpetuated an image of an almost bumbling, lovesick fool. But according to celebrity watchers, that image is a carefully cultivated one.

Let’s not forget that Birkhead is a paparazzo—excuse me, “celebrity photographer”—who knows quite well how the game is played. As one in the celeb tabloid business put it, “Birkhead might look like the ‘yes-ma’am’-in’ Southern boy who ‘really loved’ Anna, but, let’s face it, he knows this business just as well—if not a whole lot better—than the rest of the Anna Nicole dramatis personae. He knows what he’s doing.” And presumably, that means he’ll be laughing all the way to the bank. Maybe he’ll even make a pit stop at the plastic surgeon’s.

[via National Ledger]

Meanwhile Playboy has paid “tribute” to Anna Nicole by re-releasing her buxom nude pictorial from 1991. People who recall her studio time at Playboy are interviewed for an accompanying article. They recount how she was picked to fly out for a test shoot despite being slightly “buxom” at 160 pounds. The photographer described how she acted shy and covered up between shoots and how she played Marilyn Monroe’s music and sang along in her Texas twang.

This story is fading from public consciousness, but the media will try to get every angle possible for as long as possible. Tragedy coupled with a vapid personality enhanced by big boobs make for a compelling story.

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10 Responses to “Larry Birkhead might have a baby in debt, but he can sell his story for about 5 million”

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  1. Other Karen says:

    Hey CB, what happened to UrbanDK?

  2. Ceenitall says:

    Maybe it wasn’t Larry that did her and her son in. Has anyone checked where the Marshall kid was at the time of the deaths? Sounds like he had the most to gain by them dying.

  3. celebitchy says:

    Hey Other Karen, UrbanDK’s job asked him to go full time so he has not been able to write for the site since.

  4. Alyson R says:

    I thought Pierce Marshall died awhile back.

    I don’t have any problem with Larry making millions off his story. The story is his and he lived it. However, I do have a big problem with anybody getting unearned cash from Howard Marshall’s estate though. Anna married his old ass to scam money, and that’s just shameful and that kind of action is detestable and shouldn’t be condoned. She didn’t earn a dime of that money by being married to him for a few short years, and the bitch could’ve had an actual career without just taking it from an old man’s family, however rich he was. It’s just wrong.

  5. someone says:

    I don’t think her estate will ever get any money from the Marshall family. But I think Larry has a right to make a couple bucks from his own story, he has a baby to take care of, and hugh legal fees.

  6. Other Karen says:

    Good for UrbanDK, bad for the rest of us. He was too funny.

  7. gg says:

    I miss UrbanDK already. But Jessie is doing a good job. 😀

  8. julie says:

    I liked UrbanDK, but I found him hard to read. He is very clever, but he’d pack three jokes into a sentence, which would slow me down when trying to read. I have two small kids, so I have to be able to read this quickly.

  9. globular silicone says:

    i never thought that larry dorkhead was some saint who wanted to ride on his white horse to go and save his baby. when you consider the whole crowd of flies that stuck to ANS like shit, he is one of them…i guess he wormed his way in and he took his shot. literally? haha awww, he is another slimy guy looking to bank on the spawn of anna. great…so now he gets to be famous too for fifteen minutes. he must spend more on his blonde coloring appointments than a lot of chicks i know. i just think he is really phoney and im sure he has a humongous closet of skeletons. when you look at pictures of the two of them together, ans doesnt look any happier than she usually did with her standard fake smile. oh, to hell with all of them already.
    i still wish the baby could anonymously be adopted to a normal family..somewhere far far away from the tornado she was born into.

  10. globular silicone says:

    i thought that larry was gay.

    not to say that he cant donate his fishies even somewhat reluctantly, but im just sayin’.