Blonde Ambition (10 page)

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"If it got to a legal case," Larry King asked Howard, "if supposedly there were lawsuits involved, would you take a DNA?"

   "Yes," Howard said. "At this point if he was able to file a lawsuit and do it, I don't know why he hasn't done it through legal means. I don't understand, you know, why he would choose to go through the media to do what he's done. But at this point I'm not going to do him any favors . . . . It's unforgivable to me the way that he—with everything that we're going through right now—that he would go to the media and not wait until Daniel has been put to rest."

   According to a close friend, in addition to the financial issues of having Daniel's funeral in Texas or California, Howard told Anna she could not risk going back to the United States to bury Daniel because of the impending paternity issues. Howard helped Anna come to terms with the reality that Daniel had to be buried in the Bahamas, the place he had told Ray Martino he never wanted to live. When they discovered that a mausoleum in the Bahamas was cost prohibitive, they settled on a gravesite where, planning ahead, they could get four plots side by side —

one for Daniel, one for Anna, one for Howard, and one for "their new baby together," Dannielynn.

   When Larry King asked Howard about a tabloid report that Anna Nicole needed money and therefore sold photos of Daniel and his baby half-sister to pay for the funeral, Howard responded, "When we had all the media outcry after Daniel passed, there's literally been photographers camped across the street, driving back and forth, camera crews. And we decided that if we release those images, which told a story of a joyous night that it was going to be a good thing and we were going to do it to create a Daniel Wayne Smith Charitable Foundation. So she hasn't profited from those images . . . Obviously, the funeral is going to take place long before any money comes from that."

   In that night's highly talked about interview, Howard said Anna picked the Bahamas "to get away from the media and to start a new life" and to give her daughter "a chance to live a normal life." The next months of their "normal" life would get even weirder. Before they would get around to burying Daniel, Anna and Howard would do a "photo-op" commitment ceremony for
People
magazine. And, after they'd bury him in a heartbreaking, surreal funeral, they'd sell "exclusive" interviews to
Entertainment Tonight
for a reported one million dollars that would include Howard's dramatic video footage of her C-section, Anna's tears over Daniel, and her venomous, heavily medicated, diatribe of hatred towards her mother.

   Anna's life was anything but normal. And the strangest and possibly most deceptive episodes were yet to come.

Anna was sleeping a lot. And when she wasn't sleeping she was crying. The death of her son was haunting her. Though now a confusion of memories clouded by drugs and the blur of tears, she knew Daniel's death was real. She had a certificate saying so, and his decomposing body was awaiting burial in a Bahamian morgue. During her lucid moments, the recollections of the hours around his death deeply troubled her.

   She told several employees, who have gone on record, that she was afraid Howard may have had something to do with Daniel's death. Quethlie Alexis and Nadine Alexie, two of Anna's Haitian nannies, gave sworn affidavits to Bahamian attorneys on December 4, 2006, in anticipation of being called as witnesses for the inquest into Daniel's death. They had made some highly charged accusations about Anna Nicole, Howard K. Stern, and events in the Horizons house on Eastern Road. They also went on Bahamian television saying that they are fearful for their lives because they discovered that Howard K. Stern wanted information about them and where they live.

   Quethlie Alexis, a thirty-seven-year-old married mother of one child, came to help Anna as the nursery maid and nanny for Anna's expected daughter on September 4, just three days before the birth. She says that the same day she met Anna, Anna told her she had no one to help her. "Where your family?" she asked in her broken English, since she speaks primarily Creole, a French dialect.

   Anna replied that her mother wasn't in the Bahamas, or any family for that matter. Howard is "the lawyer," she said, pointing to him. He was in the Bahamas to "help her." Anna told the nanny that her boyfriend was away. And, according to the nanny, the situation in the house was not good. "Anna never talk to Howard," she said. Regarding the bedrooms where they slept, she said, "Separate."

   "Notwithstanding the generally disreputable and unsuitable household in which I worked," Quethlie swore in her written statement, "My only concern was to do my absolute best to look after Dannielynn." She worked with Anna tending to the newborn, eight a.m. until ten p.m. seven days a week until Monday, November 27 . . . when everything changed.

   "The whole domestic regime for Dannielynn is wild and unpredictable and her feeding is improper," Quethlie said in her sworn affidavit. "In addition, Ms. Marshall takes daily a lot of mood altering substances, with the result that she spends a lot of time asleep or resting in bed, and when she is up and about, her mood swings are extreme, and are very unsettling and I am therefore concerned for the baby's welfare."

   Given Anna's state, the baby spent most of her time bonding with Quethlie and the two grew very close. Anna accused Quethlie of wanting Dannielynn to think of Quethlie as her mother rather than Anna. (A charge that Quethlie vehemently denies.) Anna put her concern very bluntly one day: "If I ever hear Dannielynn call you 'mummy,' I will have to shoot you." Quethlie says that "given Ms. Marshall's state of mind and general behavior, that I believed her."

   She, however, continued her duties as nursery maid and nanny until the end of November, the day that a new washing machine was delivered to the Horizons house.

   The new washing machine was fancy. It was a front-loading machine with a lot more switches than Ms. Alexis was accustomed, and she couldn't find the user manual. Anna, susceptible to remarkable mood swings and a quick temper, was livid and accused Quethlie of losing it. In a rage, Anna fired her on the spot.

   Nadine Alexie, Quethlie's thirty-two-year-old sister-in-law and mother of two, was the "assistant baby minder" during the period, taking over from her sister-in-law at ten o'clock each night and staying until she was relieved in the morning. She signed a sworn affidavit saying that all Quethlie Alexis's charges were true. Despite this incident with the washing machine and what they believed were other drug induced outbursts, the nannies say Anna deep down was a very kind person. And they feel the real reason they were fired was because Howard K. Stern felt they knew too much, saw too much.

   Both the nannies have repeatedly said that they overheard Anna telling Howard K. Stern around the time of Daniel's funeral: "You did this! You killed him! You caused this!" And that they had also heard Anna scream at him: "Get out of here! Just wait for the inquest!"

   Wayne Munroe, Howard's Bahamian attorney, told me that the nannies were fired because "they were incompetent and insubordinate." When I asked him about their comments relating to Howard and Daniel's death, he said, "I don't expect anything more from ungrateful people."

   But other employees have corroborated many of the nannie's sworn accusations. In fact, the employee confidante told me that Anna said that since she was heavily sedated she never really found out what happened, so she didn't know what to think. "But she thought there was something behind it, that it was strange that when Daniel came he was in good spirits, healthy, and then he just dropped dead.

   "Someone poisoned him or give him drugs or something," she pointedly told him. "He didn't do drugs.

   "Anna had a feeling that something went down," her employee said. "She repeated a couple of times that when Daniel came into the hospital he was okay, then 'Howard went to get something to eat and when he ate the food he just crapped out.'" And then she burst into tears and ran back to her room where she cried herself to sleep.

   "She was afraid of Howard," he said. "You have to understand he had a strong hold on her. She didn't want to take any chances. He played a big role. She was scared and she didn't know what to do."

   And, he says, the drugs were bad—both before Daniel's death when she was pregnant and after Daniel's death when she was not. He said he saw Anna using numerous drugs, including both methadone and cocaine while pregnant. "Every other day Howard would give her a little snort in the nose and get her high . . . Howard wanted to control her. He wanted her to get high and stay high. He'd say come get your medicine."

   Anna would sweat a lot. She would suddenly break into cold sweats. "He was pushing her, until he couldn't push no more," he said. "He was killing her slowly." Bottles of methadone were, he says, kept on the left side of the refrigerator in her room. He says he saw her get injections in the arm both during and after her pregnancy. "Howard was doing it," he said. She'd take it every day, as well as numerous other prescription drugs that were often ground up and mixed into a glass of grapefruit juice.

   This employee, like numerous others, also told me that Anna and Howard were having a tough time paying people. "I got paid the first month," he said. "But then I wasn't paid for four months. Other people weren't paid, lots of people. I guess there was no money. I wasn't there for the money. I was there for her. Money would come later. I'd spend my own money to make sure stuff was put in the refrigerator. I've never seen her with money. I think they got broke somewhere down the line."

   Anna rarely left the house. Her trusted employee said she tried to outwardly put on a smile, but deep down she was hurting. "She put on a front a lot, but not with me. I knew something was going on . . . . He didn't want her to go anywhere, to see anybody. Mentally and physically controlling her. He just kept her in the house."

   That is until it was time for a paid photo opportunity. In that case, the whole world could see her.

The "bride" wore a white dress and carried a bouquet of red roses. The "groom" wore a black suit with a white shirt. It wasn't a real wedding with a marriage certificate or anything. Anna Nicole Smith and Howard K. Stern held an informal commitment ceremony floating in the waters off the coast of the Bahamas aboard
Margaritaville
, a 41-foot catamaran.

   Michael Scott, one of their growing entourage of attorneys, told the media, "They needed a little adrenaline boost because things have been so hectic and devastating in their life recently." Perhaps more than an adrenaline boost, it was the financially bankable shots that would bring the couple an injection of cash that they desperately needed to keep their life afloat.

   The "ceremony" was decidedly low key and simple. Anna Nicole was barefooted and wearing fake eyelashes that looked like she had a black moth wing stuck atop each eyelid. A cross necklace was nestled into her cleavage and her face was puffy. Though not a real wedding, she and Howard exchanged vows and temporary rings in front of a Baptist minister, as well as a small group of friends and beautiful Dannielynn, Anna Nicole's newborn daughter.

   According to the press release, the couple dispatched to the media, they had "escaped their house" at three o'clock in the morning "and boarded a boat to quietly sail the ocean around Nassau . . . on a clandestine sail to recapture simple pleasures— fresh salt air on the face, a sunrise on the ocean, and wind in their hair. And then a good thing happened: during the sail, Anna Nicole Smith and Howard K. Stern made a commitment before God to be there for one another, to be each other's strength during this difficult time."

   The release further said, "By mid-morning, helicopters flew overhead, speed boats approached, and camera-equipped scuba divers invaded what had been an otherwise perfect moment of peace, solitude, and hope. The event was intended to be totally private between two adults deeply in love with each other and needing simple reassurances that they could count on one another through life's ups and downs. The outing was never expected to be shared with anyone other than Howard, Anna, [her newborn daughter] Dannielynn Hope and a few close friends and family."

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After the ceremony, they landed on the island of Sandy Cay and the newly committed couple took the plunge into the temperate waters off the coast of the island. "Howard and Anna were both crying and kissing and holding hands," friend and former "Dynasty" actor John James told
People
magazine. The fifteen or so guests celebrated with champagne, apple cider, and Anna's favorite food, Kentucky Fried Chicken, which had been brought over for the occasion by sailboat.

   But rather than being an outing that was, as their press release stated, "never expected to be shared with anyone," the bittersweet "wedding" photos of the whole affair and story were conveniently given to and sold by photo broker Getty Images to
People
magazine for a reported one million dollars.

   Michael Scott, the attorney who had become their de facto Bahamian spokesperson in the aftermath of Daniel's death, towed the party line by announcing to the press, "This was intended to be a lift to steel them for Daniel's funeral." But behind the scenes, Michael Scott had vehemently argued against doing the ceremony. When Howard told the attorneys working with him and Anna that he wanted to do a commitment ceremony, they strongly advised him against it, saying they knew it would hurt Anna especially in the public's perception if they were seen selling their story and frolicking on a boat before her son was even buried.

   That wasn't the only moneymaking idea the couple had around a wedding that was in questionable taste. According to the website TMZ, Anna Nicole and Howard were shopping a reality show featuring Anna's quest to find a husband, similar in concept to VH1's "Flavor of Love." Their production partner in the deal was Hallock Healey Entertainment, producers of "Breaking Up with Shannen Doherty," the "$25 Million Dollar Hoax," and the ironically titled "Who's Your Daddy?" In the 2005 Fox reality TV special, a grown adoptee, who happens to be a stunning blonde actress named "T.J." who also had played a stripper, had to choose her biological father from a panel of eight men.