Anna Nicole Smith’s ex, Larry Birkhead, and their daughter, 16-year-old Dannielynn, reportedly refused to work on Netflix’s upcoming bombshell doc on the former Playmate.
“Larry was asked to be in the documentary, but he refused,” an insider dished to Daily Mail. “Larry wishes everyone luck that wants to tell Anna’s story in a different way, but he feels that nothing released so far have scratched the surface on the real story.”
The revelation comes after the streaming giant debuted a trailer for the upcoming documentary titled “Anna Nicole Smith: You Don’t Know Me,” which is poised to share the tragic life of the late model, who died of an accidental overdose in 2007 at just 39 years old.
The Post has reached out to representatives for Larry and Netflix for comment.
The upcoming Netflix film, which debuts on May 16, will add to the growing number of films to take interest in the young star, who famously modeled for the likes of Guess and H&M.
Last year, Deadline reported that a biopic, dubbed “Hurricanna,” of the model was in the works. In 2013, the biopic “The Anna Nicole Story” was released, featuring Agnes Bruckner as the titular Smith.
But Dannielynn and Larry, who dated the Playboy centerfold star and is the father to their teen daughter, are allegedly developing their own film that will do Smith’s story justice.
“They are developing a documentary that is in the works right now using Anna Nicole’s personal diaries and journals that document her highs and lows throughout her life,” the insider added. “He wants to let Anna Nicole can tell her own story instead of others trying to do it for her.”
“You Don’t Know Me” director Ursula Macfarlane said that she became “fascinated” by Smith after investigating her short yet tumultuous life.
“I think like most people, I had a cursory knowledge of who Anna Nicole was,” she told People. “The more I dug into her story, the more I discovered that a lot of what I watched and read over the years provided a one-dimensional look at Anna Nicole.”
“It’s been 16 years since she has died and it was time to dig beneath the surface,” she continued. “Society’s perspective has shifted on women in the media spotlight who pursue fame — and we need to lift up female and female identifying survivors, instead of condemning them.”
Since third-party films have been unsatisfactory for the Birkhead family, Daily Mail’s anonymous source alleged the pair will embark on the task to tell Smith’s story how she would see fit – with a “treasure trove” of home videos and never-before-seen footage as the centerpiece.
Left to Dannielynn, Smith’s belongings supposedly will play a large role in the family-produced project. Larry supposedly kept “every dress that Anna wore to every event.”
The documentary will mark one of rare moments Dannielynn will appear in the public eye, and on camera no less. Save for a few appearances at the Kentucky Derby gala over the years, Larry, who is “very protective,” has attempted to keep his young daughter away from the limelight.
Now, the teen is “not a baby anymore” and is apparently “quite opinionated,” the source claimed.
“She’s going to talk about her mom from what she knows based on things that she’s seen, heard, and read,” the insider said. “She is going to share her own personal feelings for the first time.”
Dannielynn was just 5 months old when Smith died from a deadly concoction of pills and prescriptions after suffering a 105-degree fever. The starlet was found unresponsive in her room at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Florida more than 15 years ago.
Both Smith’s psychiatrist and boyfriend were later convicted of “conspiracy, excessive prescribing of opiates and sedatives to an addict and fraudulently obtaining drugs by using false names” in relation to her drug addiction.
The 1993 Playmate of the Year first gripped the masses when she married billionaire J. Howard Marshall II, then 89, in 1994. Smith was with Marshall during the last 14 months of his life and she was accused of marrying the mogul for his money despite publicly maintaining that she loved him.
“You Don’t Know Me” will explore the pair’s relationship and what followed – from their meet-cute at a Texas strip club where Smith worked in 1991, to the posthumous legal proceedings over Marshall’s estate.
Death was not unfamiliar to Smith. Her son Daniel, who she shared with her first husband Billy Wayne Smith, succumbed to an accidental overdose the year before her eerily similar and untimely death.
Macfarlane implored viewers to “have more empathy” for the stunner, who dazzled the public after becoming a household name.
“She was human, she was complicated, but she was always, truly, unapologetically herself,” she told People, championing the model for the woman and mother she was. “A funny, smart and kind free spirit who lived her life to the fullest.”
“She’s a woman who deserves our attention and our understanding,” the director added. “I want people to come away loving her as much as I do, but at the very least I want her to be appreciated as the multi-dimensional and deeply vulnerable woman she was.”
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