It’s fair to say Anna Nicole Smith was one of the world’s most famous faces at one point in time.
Shooting to fame in the 1990s, Smith posed for Playboy magazine, before going on to shoot with major brands such as Guess and H&M.
Tragically, as we’ve seen many times before, her fame and fortune would ultimately play a big role in her downfall. Smith died from an accidental drug overdose in 2007, aged 39.
At the time, Smith’s daughter, Dannielynn Birkhead, was only five months old. Many years have passed since then, and though Dannielynn has been kept largely out of the spotlight, she recently stepped out in front of cameras alongside her father, Larry Birkhead, to enjoy the 2023 Kentucky Derby.
Needless to say, people were left stunned by just how much Dannielynn has grown into the spitting image of her late mother…
Anna Nicole Smith became one of the biggest names in the modeling industry after several photoshoots with Playboy. She was eventually signed by William Morris, one of the most distinguished talent agencies in the United States, and went on to appear in modeling campaigns all over the globe.
“I love the paparazzi,” she once told the Washington Post.
“They take pictures, and I just smile away. I’ve always liked the attention. I didn’t get very much growing up, and I always wanted to be, you know, noticed.”
Yet the wild life of glamor, glitz, and fortune took a toll.
Smith’s high-profile relationship with petroleum tycoon J. Howard Marshall is regarded by many as the beginning of her downfall. The 63-year-old age difference between Anna and her elderly husband raised plenty of eyebrows – a lot of people were of the belief that Anna was only interested in Marshall because of his fortune.
The couple married in 1994, but just six months after the ceremony, Marshall fell ill and died aged 90.
Years of controversy followed, with Smith and Marshall’s family locked in a legal battle over his will. The case ultimately went as high as the US Supreme Court in 2006.
Then, in 2007, tragedy struck when Anna Nicole died of an overdose, leaving behind a five-month-old daughter, Dannielynn Birkhead.
In the wake of her famous mother’s death, Dannielynn quickly became one of the most talked-about children in the world. Her early upbringing was engulfed in drama and speculation relating to the identity of her father.
Several men claimed to be the little girl’s dad before a court eventually ordered a paternity test. The test revealed that Anna Nicole’s boyfriend at the time of her death, Larry Birkhead, was in fact Dannielynn’s biological father.
Since then, not much has been seen of Dannielynn. Dad Larry appears to have taken steps to ensure she received as normal an upbringing as possible; she’s been enrolled in a regular school, been in the scouts, and gone to church every Sunday.
Which is likely why Dannielynn turned so many heads at the recent Kentucky Derby, after stepping before cameras on the red carpet alongside her dad.
At the Barnstable Brown Gala that took place ahead of the Derby, the now-16-year-old wore a blouse with photographs of her mom. Larry wore a tie featuring the same images.
“She’s showing off her fashion sense but at the same time paying tribute to her mom,” Larry said. He added that he and Dannielynn had decided to pay tribute to Anna Nicole Smith because it marked the 20th anniversary of the day he had met the model back in 2003. At the time, he was a photographer covering the event.
According to Larry, he’s kept Anna Nicole’s old clothes in storage, and Danielynn sometimes goes through them.
“And everything she has of her mom’s is cataloged in storage, with photos of the event where she wore it,” Larry revealed.
“So someday, she can give them to her kids if she wants to.”
Well, I think it’s safe to say that Danielynn is becoming a true beauty just like her late mother was.
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She was frequently beaten by her husband, so she left the house with her kids.
Cara Brookins was left emotionally broken when her second abusive marriage ended. She got well by building her own house, which she did after seeing YouTube videos on how to do it.
The mother of four started looking for a new house in 2007 after being forced to sell the Bryant, Arkansas, home she and her soon-to-be ex shared. At the moment, though, anything the computer programmer analyst could afford was too tiny. Brookins too felt obliged to take action to bring her family back together. She admits, “But I had no idea what that should be.”
Brookins, therefore, came up with the idea to build her own house from the ground up. According to Brookins, 45, “If anyone was in our situation, they wouldn’t do this.” “No one else viewed it this way, and now that I think about it, I understand it sounds crazy.”
One acre of property cost Brookins $20,000, and she obtained a building credit for about $150,000. She then started watching YouTube tutorials to learn how to do things like run a gas line, build a wall, lay a foundation, and install plumbing.
Her children, ages 2 to 17, helped her throughout the nine-month construction of the 3,500-square-foot home. At the time, Drew, who was 15 years old, helped Brookins make the preparations. Jada, who was 11 at the time, transported water from a neighbor’s pond using buckets because there was no running water on the property. She then combined the water with 80-pound sacks of concrete to create the mortar for the foundation.
It felt impossible the entire time, according to Brookins, who worked when the kids were in school. After school, Brookins drove her family to the five-mile-away construction site where she worked late into the night on the new house.
YouTube videos previously were vague and provided numerous solutions to a task. Brookins employed a part-time firefighter with building experience for $25 per hour to help with some of the more challenging tasks. She remembers, “He was a step ahead of us in knowledge.”
On March 31, 2009, Brookins and her kids moved into the five-bedroom home. She gave it the name Inkwell Manor in recognition of her desire to become a writer.
In the years afterwards, Brookins has written numerous middle grade and young adult books. She has also written a biography titled Rise: How a House Built a Family, which will be released on January 24.
Building the house helped Brookins emerge from her depression. We were ashamed that our best option was to construct our own shelter, Brookins adds. “We weren’t really proud of it,” In the end, it proved to be the best thing I could have done for myself.
She says, “You can do anything you set your mind to if I, a 110 pound computer programmer, can build a complete house.” Choose one goal and stay with it. Find the big thing you want to do, move slowly in that direction, and take those who also need healing with you. That has a lot of influence.
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