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The final chapter in the bizarre saga of Anna Nicole Smith played out this morning (NZ time), when a spokesperson confirmed the reality television star and former Playboy playmate had died.
The 39-year-old former model collapsed in a south Florida hotel room on Thursday afternoon (Friday morning NZT) and was taken to a local hospital where she died.
Smith's unexpected death comes just months after her 20-year-old son Daniel died, last October.
She leaves behind her five-month-old daughter Dannielynn Hope.
Smith came into the public eye in 1993 when she was named Playboy's playmate of the year. She went on to become the face of Guess? Jeans.
In June 1994, Smith married oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall when she was 26 years old. He was 89.
Marshall died 14 months later, leaving Smith half his estimated US$1.6 billion estate.
Marshall's eldest son E. Pierce Marshall challenged Smith's claim, embroiling his step-mother in a decade long legal battle that is still unresolved.
Aside from her controversial marriage, Smith is known for her reality television series The Anna Nicole Smith Show.
The programme made its debut in 2002 and followed Smith about her daily business. Though critics trashed the reality series, the show rated highly and was popular with fans who found Smith's bizarre antics humourous.
The series was cancelled in 2004 but Smith remained in the media spotlight due to her drastic weight loss, which saw the former model lose more than 30kg.
Smith attributed her slim down to the product TrimSpa and became a spokesperson for the weight loss pill.
At the time, Smith made a bizarre public appearance, at the American Music Awards, where she slurred incoherently while presenting an award.
While media speculated Smith was under the influence of drugs, her representatives denied the allegations.
In 2006, Smith once again became the centre of tabloid attention when she refused to name the father of her unborn child.
Dannielynn Hope was born on September 7, 2006 in the Bahamas. Three days later, Smith's son Daniel died, aged 20.
Less than three weeks later, Smith and her lawyer Howard K. Stern exchanged vows in a commitment ceremony aboard a luxury yacht in the Bahamas.
The ceremony came just days after Stern professed his love on national television, during and interview with Larry King, in which he announced he was the father of Smith's baby.
However, photojournalist Larry Birkhead maintained he was the child's real father and began a series a legal proceedings against Smith to determine the paternity of the child.
- NZHERALD STAFF
