“Through it all, even with all the pain, she has been a great mom, a very attentive mom,” Stern, who swapped vows in a commitment ceremony with Smith in the Bahamas but never legally married her, said on Larry King Live in the wake of Daniel’s death.
“At the funeral, she tried to climb in the casket,” Birkhead told 20/20. “I knew that Anna would be in no shape on her own after losing Daniel, as close as they were, to take care of my daughter.”
When Smith died five months later, Paul Marciano said in a statement, “Personally, I feel she did not survive the loss of her son Daniel, who was the love of her life.”
Smith never denied that Stern was Dannielynn’s father, so it would be up to DNA to prove it in a court of law as both he and Birkhead vied for custody of the child in the wake of Anna Nicole’s death. (Several other men, including Zsa Zsa Gabor‘s husband Prince Frederic von Anhalt came forward as possible fathers, too.)
There was also a dispute over the fate of Smith’s body, with Stern wanting to decide on her final resting place, too, while Smith’s estranged mother, Virgie Arthur, wanted to take her daughter’s body home to Texas. Stern won and Smith was buried next to Daniel in the Bahamas.