Anna Nicole Smith: Another Media Casualty

Anna Nicole Smith was preyed upon and exploited by the media, her family and her so-called friends for as long as I could remember. Her bubbly and wacky behavior made her the butt of jokes, skits and ongoing media scrutiny. Not even the death of her son Daniel was cause enough to allow this woman a moment's peace and now she's gone.

She was born Vickie Lynn Hogan on November 28, 1967 in Houston, Texas. Although her life was less then glamorous, she was determined to make something out of herself; she was determined to be the next Marilyn Monroe.

In March 1992 she appeared on the cover of Playboy. She was one of the magazine's most popular models in 1993 she was named Playmate of the Year, an accomplishment that Anna was proud of and one that she would speak of for many years to come.

Anna wasn't as dumb as everyone thought she was, she turned her success as a Playmate into a spokes model contract with Guess Jeans. She also tried out acting, and although she had a few roles, nothing really big ever came of it.

In October 1991 Anna met billionaire J. Howard Marshall. In 1994 they married. From that point on Anna Nicole became a prisoner of the press, even more so after Marshall's death in 1995. The media circus was in full swing.

After Marshall's death Anna found herself in court, fighting for what she believed was her part of Marshall's billions, but she didn't have an easy fight ahead of her, Marshall's son was determined to see Anna Nicole without any of his father's money.

In March 2002, a federal judge issued a ruling awarding Anna Nicole $88 million, but In December 2004, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the March 2002 decision, but Anna continued to fight.

In 2002 Anna got in my opinion a much deserved break. She was given her own reality show on the E! Network, the Anna Nicole Smith Show.

Week after week viewers tuned in to watch Smith act as goofy as possible. Sometimes she appeared a little off balance, but to her defense, who hasn't? The show gave the world a glimpse of Anna Nicole the person, and it showed her interacting with the one true love of her life, her son Daniel.

It had been rumored that Anna agreed to do the show in order to take care of her son and pay for his private school tuition, but still the media portrayed her as some wack-a-doo blonde, without any concern to what all this bad press might be doing to her and her son.

Throughout the years Anna struggled with her weight. It appeared to go up and down over the years, but I always thought she was beautiful no matter what size she was. That's the beauty about life, people come in all different colors, shapes and sizes, but Anna was consistently ridiculed because of her weight. Either she was over weight and couldn't stop eating or she lost the weight to fast and was on drugs. The woman couldn't win for losing.

As time passed Anna made several appearances on a number of different shows, and her sometimes suspicious behavior would always be front page news the next morning. In March 2005 she appeared on the MTV Australia Video Music Awards in Sydney. While onstage she pulled down her dress and revealed both breast. Yes, that sounds nuts, but Anna was free sprit and she did what she wanted despite how others felt and despite how it would make her look. It appeared that sometimes she lived her life like there were no cameras around, the same way the average person lives their life everyday.

How many of you can say that you haven't walked around your house naked, or sang and danced in the mirror making a complete fool out of yourself? We've all done it, we've all acted nutty. She just happened to do whenever she felt like it.

In June 2006 Anna Nicole announced that she was pregnant, and on September 7, 2006 in the Bahamas she gave birth to a daughter, Dannielynn. A few days after the birth of her daughter Anna Nicole went through something that no parent should ever have to go through, she lost her son. Daniel died a few days after the birth of his sister. He was in the Bahamas with Anna.

From there things went rapidly down hill. The media turned the death of her son into a media circus, not even giving the woman time to grieve, and then here comes Larry Birkhead, a photographer that claimed that he fathered Anna's daughter.

Birkhead hired a lawyer and stuck his face in the cameras every chance he got, "pleading" with Anna to bring her money home, oh my mistake, I meant her daughter. Larry claims that he's 100% positive that he's Dannielynn's father, and he wants nothing more then to love and raise her, because he claimed Anna was unfit. WHATEVER! People deal with paternity issues all the time. The courts are full of them, but you don't see other potential fathers speaking to Larry King do you?

The next thing you know, Larry is accusing her of being on drugs, and her so called friends are testifying on his behalf also claiming she's on drugs, and even her family in Texas, people who probably haven't seen her in years are now on CNN putting their two cents in.

Maybe Anna was taking drugs, we have no idea, but it's not such a far stretch of the imagination to think that someone might be doing something, anything to dull the pain she was feeling. I'm not defending drug use, but the woman was a human punching bag, and all the people that contributed to making her life hell should feel very, very guilty.

She was no saint, no one is, and I'm not trying to paint her as one, but she was a human. She had feelings like everyone else, and if anything good came out of her death, it's that she's at peace now. She no longer has to worry about what people say about her. She no longer has to listen while millions of strangers pass judgment on her.

Rest in Peace Anna, tell Marilyn we said hello.