Latest news with #Birkhead
Daily Mail
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Anna Nicole Smith's daughter Dannielynn, 18, reveals heartbreaking reason why she wears late model's clothes
Anna Nicole Smith 's daughter Dannielynn recently revealed the reason she wears her late mother's clothing. On the eve of the Kentucky Derby, the 18-year-old teenage daughter of the late model attended the annual Barnstable Brown Gala in a gown that Smith previously wore to the same event in 2004. Joining her dad Larry Birkhead at the soirée, she posed for photos in the sentimental, black gown with crystal-embellished straps and a low back. At the Barnstable Brown House in Louisville, Dannielynn explained why she likes to wear her mother's clothing and shared the heartbreaking reason she decided to wear that specific dress. Her mother passed away at the age of 39 in 2007 when Dannielynn was just a five-month-old newborn baby. While walking the red carpet at the event, the teenager teared up as she spoke about her late mother and the special meaning of the dress she was wearing. 'This is the closest to a hug I can get from her,' she told Access Hollywood on Friday. On the same day, Dannielynn's father took to Instagram and shared a photo of them together at the event. 'Dannielynn is wearing Anna Nicole's dress that she wore 21 years ago to this same event. Life full circle,' Birkhead wrote in his caption. 'She said she chose the dress because it was her Mom's and "super cool."' She also channeled her mom by wearing her blonde hair up in the same bouncy updo with loose tendrils framing her face. At the gala, Birkhead, 52, also shared his reaction to seeing his daughter wearing the dress for the first time. 'It was emotional because the last time I saw that dress was on Anna,' he told People on Friday. He added that when Dannielynn 'was a little girl, she walked over and she put her hand on the dress. And now that she's actually old enough to wear it, it just seems surreal that we're at this moment.' She was the spitting image of her late mom as she rocked the star's jewelry at the Kentucky Derby on Sunday Birkhead and Smith met at the Barnstable Gala in 2003. When Dannielynn was just three years old, she attended her first Kentucky Derby with her father. Since then, the father-daughter duo have made the Barnstable Gala and the Kentucky Derby into their annual tradition. On Sunday, Dannielynn was the spitting image of her late mom as she rocked the star's jewelry at the Kentucky Derby. She wowed in a pale green strapless tulle dress by Mac Duggal, accessorized with a gold pendant necklace, gold watch, stacked bangles, and a feather-trimmed fascinator — all pulled straight from her mom's personal collection. In his Instagram post, Birkhead revealed the sentimental connection, writing: 'Jewelry: Anna Nicole archive.' He also joked about his Derby-day makeover, adding, 'She made me cut my hair because she said I looked like a low-rent Keith Urban! Ouch Betting on a great time and good weather for a special family tradition.' The touching tribute came just hours after Dannielynn turned heads at the Barnstable Brown Gala, where she dazzled in one of her mom's iconic backless, floor-length dresses. She was the epitome of her late mother as she wore the star's iconic dress this week The teen picked out her mother's dress to wear to the event and her father believes that 'she's doing a fashion experiment for herself. Also, I think it's really meaningful for her to wear.' Birkheadcontinued, 'I'm just glad she's going through and starting to wear some of [Smith's clothes] because she could literally pick out an outfit a day for the rest of her life and never wear the same thing twice with everything.' He currently is storing clothes that belonged to Smith in case his daughter wants them in the future. 'She's just now starting to get into the curiosity of some of the fashion and things in her mom's world.' Dannielynn has attended the Barnstable Brown Gala with her father since she was a little girl. Last year, the pair flashed cheerful smiles while stopping by the event - and the teen donned a stylish Gianfranco Ferre dress which had previously been worn by Janet Jackson. And in 2023, Smith's daughter sweetly paid homage to the model by wearing a Guess shirt that had black and white images of the late star. She additionally wore a black, layered tulle skirt as well as a thick belt with a shimmering silver bow embellishment on the front. During a past interview with in 2019, Birkhead opened up about raising his daughter after Smith lived a life in the spotlight. Smith welcomed her daughter to the world in September 2006 — less than one year before her tragic passing. After her death, multiple individuals stepped forward to claim that they were Dannielynn's father — including Birkhead. Following DNA tests, it was revealed that Birkhead was her biological father. 'People always say, "Is she going to be an actress? Is she going to be a model?" And I never push her in a certain direction,' he stated. 'Actually, I get calls all the time and I say, "No, she's not interested in doing that kind of stuff." Right now she's just being a kid.' Birkhead — who resides in the state of Kentucky with his daughter —also shared at the time: 'She surprised me because last year she took an acting class. 'I got an email from a teacher and she said Dannielynn gave one of the most believable performances of the whole, whole entire school. So, if she wants to do something like that when she's see when we get there.' She also welcomed a son named Daniel in 1986 with ex-husband Billy Wayne Smith. However, at the age of 20 in September 2006, Daniel passed away in Smith's hospital room due to an accidental drug overdose. Days earlier, Smith had given birth to daughter Dannielynn. Larry explained, '[Dannielynn] knows just really that her mom was famous and she knows about Daniel. I try to incorporate both of them because sometimes Daniel gets forgotten. 'We try to talk about him and I shared a birthday with him, so we always celebrated together.' He added, 'You know, I tell her stories about them and I try to not make it heavy, because she's just now becoming a teenager and I think some of that stuff will come...' And while also speaking with in 2023, Birkhead was asked if his daughter did anything that reminded him of Smith - whom he first met in 2003. 'Yeah she can spend my money like her mom. And she loves to do that,' he humorously stated. He later expressed, 'I've created such a foundation for that I've given the tools to say, look, this. Life is normal now. 'I'm very picky and selective. She's very grounded and very humble. She is not one of these entitled celebrity kids. She's gone to a public school all her life. That's what she chose. She said I want to go to public school and not to private.' Birkhead further gushed, 'Dannielynn is on the honor roll and she makes great grades. She is taking college level classes. Anna would be very, very proud of her. I know I am.'
Fox News
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Anna Nicole Smith's daughter has 'full-circle' moment wearing her late mom's dress at Kentucky Derby
Dannielynn Birkhead kept her late mother's memory alive at her favorite event of the season, the 151st Kentucky Derby. The 18-year-old daughter of Anna Nicole Smith and Larry Birkhead turned heads wearing one of her mom's iconic looks for the annual race weekend in Louisville, Kentucky. During an appearance at the Barnstable Brown Gala Friday, Dannielynn wore a glamorous black dress with sparkling diamonds across the back, a gown Anna Nicole first wore to the same event 21 years ago. Her father noted that the dress held sentimental meaning for him and his daughter. "Kicking off @kentuckyderby weekend with Dannielynn," Larry wrote on Instagram. "First up, The Barnstable-Brown Gala. Dannielynn is wearing Anna Nicole's dress that she wore 21 years ago to this same event. Life full circle. "She said she chose the dress because it was her Mom's and 'super cool.' Next up the Kentucky Derby races. We are glad to spend time with my niece Chloe (pictured). I am going to try not an embarrass them with my dance moves." Dannielynn perfected her late mom's signature blonde updo with help from stylists Ryan Austin and Janna Allgeier. Her signature red lip and bold eyes were credited to makeup artist Rick Bancroft. On the red carpet, Dannielynn talked about the dream halter gown and its connection to her mom. "I feel good in it," she told Access Hollywood before admitting she was holding back tears. "I can't know my mom, sadly, and this is one of the only reasons and ways I can. This is the closest I'll ever be getting to a hug from her." The Barnstable Brown Gala, which benefits the Barnstable Brown Diabetes Center at the University of Kentucky, is one of the most exclusive and star-studded Derby eve parties. Taking part in the Kentucky Derby festivities is an annual tradition for Dannielynn and Birkhead. Birkhead met the late Playboy Playmate at the Kentucky Derby in 2003, and despite keeping their relationship relatively private at the time, he's continued to return to the historic annual event as a way to honor the past and continue creating new traditions with his little girl. "We had a really great time, and it's kind of been a tradition that we would go every year," he previously told Fox News Digital of the annual affair at the Barnstable Brown Derby Gala. "That's where I met Anna Nicole Smith. And it's something that I've taken my daughter back every year since. She's old enough to kind of understand what it is. "Since I did meet her mom there, it started off just kind of me taking her back and showing her around and kind of letting her know the stories that, you know, this is kind of where I met your mom and things. And then it came to kind of people look for my daughter there because I really don't let her do any public events. And, so, in all honesty, the Kentucky Derby is kind of the growth chart for Dannielynn." Smith died in 2007 at the age of 39, when Dannielynn was just 5 months old. Birkhead fought to establish his paternal rights when Dannielynn was born in the Bahamas in September 2006 and became a central figure in public court battles after Anna Nicole's death Feb. 8, 2007, after multiple people attempted to claim paternity. After a DNA test in April 2007, a judge declared Birkhead the father, and he has since raised his daughter out of the Hollywood spotlight and in his home state of Kentucky.
Telegraph
03-03-2025
- General
- Telegraph
The beautiful bird made extinct by human greed
In June 1844, farmers Jón Brandsson and Sigurður Ísleifsson, along with 12 others, made the perilous journey by boat from Iceland to the island of Eldey. They were searching for great auks: black and white sea birds about the size of geese which had nested on Eldey, once, in large numbers, but whose rarity meant that they were now in demand as stuffed specimens. Later, Ísleifsson would describe how, on arriving, he and Brandsson found only a single pair, which they chased until they caught one each: 'I took him by the neck and he flapped his wings. He made no cry. I strangled him.' In the process the birds' single egg was trampled – the last known of the great auks. It's the events leading up to this final obliteration on Eldey that Tim Birkhead deals with in the first half of The Great Auk, a book that's both a homage to the extinct bird and an account of its queasy afterlife as a collector's item. These birds, he argues, had always been vulnerable to predation. They were flightless, and easy to catch. They were also, apparently, delicious. By the 17th century, when European seafarers began using a colony of auks off Newfoundland as a kind of transatlantic larder, the great auk had already been forced to retreat to inaccessible breeding sites multiple times. Over the next 200 years, with astonishing brutality, the great auk would be hunted in droves, first for food, then for feathers, and then, once its near-extinction made it valuable, for nothing other than its skin, which would be stuffed and sold onto collectors or museums whose acquisitive desires were clothed in scientific respectability. This was the fate of the bird that Ísleifsson killed, whose preserved heart ended up in a museum in Copenhagen. It is this – the market in, and collection of, great auk remains – which Birkhead tackles in the second half of his book. There's something endlessly pleasurable in listening to a person talk about a subject on which they're both an enthusiast and an authority, and Birkhead has both qualities in abundance. Taking us from southern Europe cave art to collection mania to the modern-day study of great auks' remains, he wears his erudition lightly, neither lecturing nor unnecessarily glossing. He's at his best when writing about his own research, which includes how great auks might have incubated their eggs, and the age at which their chicks fledged. These chapters become fascinating in Birkhead's hands, both in their own right and as a glimpse into the processes of developing a scientific argument. ('In the absence of the chick itself, one way of assessing the great auk's likely chick-rearing strategy is by drawing comparisons with its relatives,' he tells us in one chapter.) I would have been perfectly happy if he'd gone into twice the detail, and at twice the length. This focus is slightly lost in the book's second half, particularly in the sections on the American collector Vivian Hewitt, where glimpses of a deeper argument are obscured behind unconnected biographical detail. Discussing Hewitt's mania for oology (egg collection), Birkhead writes that in the 20th century, its social disgrace 'could be offset by science'. The ambiguity in distinguishing between a collector and a scientific ornithologist, together with the possibility that science itself may be thought culpable in the great auk's extinction, is a complexity alluded to throughout the book.
