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NASSAU, Bahamas - Actress Anna Nicole Smith is shaping up as a major political embarrassment for the government of the Bahamas with one minister under pressure to resign for giving her special treatment.
Since arriving in Nassau three months ago, and being struck by tragedy when her 20-year-old son Daniel Wayne Smith died, the former reality TV star has sparked a Cabinet crisis, angry editorials and inspired lawsuits that could drag on for months.
The 39-year-old former Playboy playmate and widow of an oil billionaire who was 63 years older than she, fled to the Bahamas to find peace, give birth to her daughter Dannie Lynn Hope and escape the attention of the Hollywood paparazzi.
But Smith's presence set off a succession of legal disputes, a controversy over ministerial integrity and has drawn almost daily, unwelcome attention to the Bahamas from US cable networks. In addition, American tabloids have examined almost every aspect of her life as she hides behind the walls of her island home.
Ex-lover Larry Birkhead, who claims to be the father of Smith's 2-month-old daughter, says Smith is "laughing in the face of the Bahamas government" by using the country to escape Californian paternity laws and a DNA test on her baby.
But he and his attorney Debra Opri have vowed to "fight to the finish" to get justice in his paternity claim, alleging the baby was conceived during a two-year relationship that ended only after he expressed concern about how her lifestyle might be harming the unborn child.
For the Bahamas, trouble began when Smith's son Daniel died at her bedside at Doctors Hospital in Nassau on September 10 -- the day after he arrived to visit his mother and his then 3-day-old sister.
Daniel's death triggered several embarrassing disclosures for the Bahamas government, including the fast-tracking of her residency permit by Immigration Minister Shane Gibson.
PRESSURE, RIDICULE FOR MINISTER
Gibson, who claimed to be a close friend of Smith, is now under intense pressure to quit for not doing due diligence in allowing her to stay in the country. He also faces ridicule for being photographed at her much-publicized "exchange of vows" with lawyer boyfriend Howard K. Stern on a catamaran while her son's body lay in a local morgue.
With a Bahamas general election less than five months away, the Bahamian media is demanding that Prime Minister Perry Christie fire Gibson.
It also wants to know when legal authorities are going to order an inquest into Daniel Smith's death. So far, Bahamian officials have been strangely quiet on autopsy tests and an inquest date, in spite of US pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht's disclosure that the youth's body contained methadone and at least two antidepressants.
If all that weren't bad enough, another of Smith's ex-lovers, South Carolina realtor Ben Thompson, is suing in the Bahamian courts to establish his ownership of the US$900,000 house that formed the basis of Smith's residency permit.
Under Bahamian law, a person has to buy a property worth at least US$500,000 before qualifying for residency but Thompson says he only advanced money to buy the house on the understanding that Smith would take out a mortgage to repay him.
Thompson alleges that Smith "double crossed" him by reneging on the deal once her residency was established, claiming the property was a gift. He is suing in the hope of getting his money back or establishing ownership.
Smith and Stern, who also claims to be father of her daughter, have failed to respond to Thompson's eviction notice, which expired on October 31. They continue to live in the house, which stands on Nassau's exclusive Eastern Road, traditional base of the nation's wealthy white merchants.
- REUTERS
