Larry Birkhead was cautiously hopeful that Netflix’s Anna Nicole Smith documentary would do justice to the late star — like different latest popular culture explorations reconsidering well-known ladies. To say he is dissatisfied by the top result’s an understatement.
The day it was launched, Birkhead — who didn’t take part within the mission— known as the movie about his 16-year-old daughter’s mom a “cesspool” and he elaborated in an unique interview with Yahoo Leisure. To him, it is one more factor exploiting the Guess and Playboy mannequin, who died from an unintended drug overdose in 2007, when it might have been an vital corrective to the document. In his eyes, it would not simply damage Anna Nicole, but in addition their daughter.
To be clear, Birkhead did not anticipate Anna Nicole’s life would someway be rewritten like a Disney-esque fantasy — the place immediately the tabloid star’s struggles and scandals had been erased. Nevertheless, a pitch despatched out by producers, which Yahoo has reviewed, promised the mission can be a “non-judgmental” story that will “restore dignity” to Smith, a sufferer of “society’s thirst for superstar” tradition, and he feels they fell very, very brief. Birkhead additionally takes situation with some commentators within the movie, together with individuals who he says “by no means met me” making “false and defamatory” statements about not simply him however his relationship, which he felt “go unchallenged” by filmmakers.
“Not one of the those that commented on my relationship with Anna Nicole performed a job in her life the whole 2.5 years I dated her,” he says.
Netflix did not reply to Yahoo Leisure’s request for remark.
These giving their takes embrace Pol’ Atteu, a clothes designer for Anna Nicole, who has a longtime unfavorable historical past with Birkhead, opining about how Anna Nicole “could not stand” Larry. Mitchell Olson, a actuality TV star who appeared on an episode of The Anna Nicole Present, steered information that Anna Nicole’s relationship with Birkhead was transactional — like he was there to father her child and don’t have any half in elevating it. Olson additionally claimed he had first-hand information that the couple by no means shared a bed room. Lastly, Kevin Smith, a tabloid journalist, speculated {that a} “lightbulb went off” in Birkhead’s head when the photographer met Anna Nicole at a Kentucky Derby gala in Might 2004, considering a relationship “might be fairly profitable.”
“One made a gown or two,” he says of Atteu. “One by no means even was in Anna’s house in the whole time I dated her” of Olson. “One other, that by no means met me is giving hypothesis about what he thought went by means of my head after I met Anna Nicole. This isn’t precisely high-end journalism.”
Birkhead continues, “A few the people talking about me are retaliating on account of the truth that we now have needed to police Anna Nicole’s stolen property over time from so-called ‘pals.'” (Dannielynn inherited everything of her mom’s property, which as her guardian he oversees.)
For his half, Birkhead did hearken to the mission pitch by director Ursula Macfarlane, who beforehand made movies about Brigitte Bardot and Yoko Ono, and her crew, hoping that the movie can be one narrative he’d be proud to indicate Dannielynn in the future.
He says Macfarlane’s crew made “a number of makes an attempt to woo me by paying compliments to me about how ‘vital’ my relationship with Anna can be to this documentary and what a ‘nice father’ I’m.”
Yahoo obtained a duplicate of such pitch — not despatched to Birkhead, however another person — about showing within the movie. It mentioned, “With coronary heart and soul, this bold documentary will restore dignity and do justice to one of the understood American ladies of our time. We intention to current a non-judgmental portrait of Anna Nicole, telling a much bigger story about our society’s thirst for superstar, and the best way during which we love stunning younger ladies, solely to mistreat them at any and each slight misstep.”
Nevertheless, opinions of the movie level to its personal exploitation, because the movie claims Anna Nicole’s father tried to have intercourse along with her when she was an grownup in addition to particulars a purported same-sex romance she had with a pal. Selection‘s assessment famous, “This exploration and would-be exoneration of Anna Nicole Smith’s tragic life turns into the type of exploitation it seeks to sentence.” The New York Instances‘s mentioned, “The solemn excavation of Smith’s life and demise — she died at 39 of a drug overdose, in 2007 — finally brings the film, regardless of Macfarlane’s well-meaning efforts, squarely into the territory of what it’s trying to sentence: lurid voyeurism.”
Birkhead says it grew to become obvious to him as manufacturing progressed — and he grew to become conscious of who had signed on, figuring out all of the gamers within the circus that was his ex-girlfriend’s life, and different components — that he would not take part or share supplies from the property or his private archives for it. He says he then felt a shift within the narrative.
“It is apparent that since we did not take part, the producer/director’s tone modified by then deciding to permit folks to say false and defamatory issues about me and my relationship with Anna and let these statements go unchallenged,” he says.
Additional, he provides, “Not one of the producers reached out to me for remark, as promised, previous to the airing of those statements. These are the identical people who put in writing that this mission can be ‘one thing Dannielynn can be pleased with.’ Dannielynn won’t ever see this mission, nonetheless our lawyer will.”
When Yahoo beforehand spoke with Macfarlane in regards to the documentary and requested if Birkhead had been requested to look, she mentioned “after all,” however whereas they “had many conversations” which had been “very amicable … ultimately, we could not comply with the situations that he had.”
Of those situations, Birkhead says, “My major situation was with the credibility of the individuals and ensuring after a number of guarantees from earlier productions that a few of these people would not be included.”
Whereas Birkhead declines to delve into these or additional points with the movie, leaving that to his lawyer, he says he could not permit the narrative that he was just a few sperm donor go unchecked. He says he is by no means tried to painting his relationship with Anna Nicole as a fairytale, but it surely wasn’t in any respect what’s proven on-screen.
You recognize, it might have been this nice love story,” Birkhead says. “However to be sincere, I used to be towards the chances, as a result of I had entourages and hangers-on and other people throughout Anna. So it was a tough sort factor. However it wasn’t like we had been Ike and Tina Turner. We weren’t Prince Charming and Cinderella both. It was one in every of this stuff the place it was in-between. We had our moments, We had a two-and-a half-year-relationship. To see folks attempt to scale back that down for a revenue or a acquire is simply ridiculous. One thing that you simply actually would not anticipate from a so-called high-end manufacturing on Netflix.”
He is lengthy considered doing his personal mission, after so many unfavorable narratives. That wasn’t a secret to the filmmakers for this doc both, as each he individually as a photographer and the property possess tons of footage and images and memorabilia of the long-lasting blonde bombshell.
“I sit up for, in a mission, with the ability to lay out all the archives,” Birkhead says. “An enormous quantity of the stuff has to do with my relationship with Anna that individuals have by no means heard and seen. So it is going to be fascinating when folks truly see that and go, ‘Oh, my God, we had been suckered.'”
Nevertheless, “Firstly, it is extra vital for my daughter to see a few of these movies than it’s anyone else” as a result of her mom has lengthy been a punching bag, he says. “She was mainly trashed and vilified [including in a documentary] that sought out to humanize her and to indicate a constructive portrayal of a girl that was speculated to be misunderstood, in accordance with the director.”
He continues, “I believe they’ve failed their very own mission. Someplace alongside the road, somebody aborted the precise mission and that is unlucky for Anna, her followers and my daughter.”
As for him seeing greenback indicators when he met Anna Nicole — whereas working taking images on the Derby 19 years in the past — Birkhead says she truly pursued him after they met. Footage from the Derby gala confirmed her apparent curiosity, however he says he was stunned to get an invitation to {photograph} her at Camp Kindle, which helped youngsters that had been impacted by HIV, shortly after they met. He was touched by her charitable facet, one thing not showcased within the Netflix documentary.
“So if something, Anna chased me and supplied me a chance regardless of the [film’s] claims that I used to be on the lookout for alternative” to money in, he says.
As for a way he protects Dannielynn from all of this, he says, “Effectively, truthfully, she’s recognized since she was little that individuals make up tales and lies about mother. We have walked previous magazines and so they’ve mentioned simply essentially the most outlandish issues. So I’ve advised her early on that individuals are incentivized by making up tales for various causes and that there are loads of dangerous folks on the market that can say dangerous issues about her mother.
“But in addition … it is probably not a part of her on a regular basis life,” says Birkhead, who has sheltered his daughter, taking her away from the limelight to develop up and making typically simply annual appearances on the derby gala. “She did not know her mom. She is aware of what folks say about her mom. She additionally is aware of that individuals say dangerous issues about her.”
