It's been 14 years since the extensive media coverage that surrounded the birth of model and actor Anna Nicole Smith's daughter and Smith's death only a few months later. Now, Smith's daughter, Dannielynn Birkhead, is a teen, and she and her father, Larry Birkhead, are featured in a new 20/20 special in which they learn more about Smith's early life.
The two-hour 20/20 special, titled "Tragic Beauty," airs Friday, Feb. 5 at 9 p.m. "Dannielynn’s a teenager now, and she doesn’t really know a ton of things about her mom," Larry says in the trailer. "As a dad who has a child whose mom’s passed away, I thought, Why not go back to Anna’s beginnings?"
The special follows Dannielynn and Larry as they visit Smith's Texas hometown and explore the life she lived in Los Angeles. There are also interviews with others who were close to Smith, along with a look into the situation surrounding her death.
As one person from Smith's past says of Dannielynn in the trailer, "You are your mommy. You look just like her." Read on to see for yourself, and to find out more about the Birkheads' lives today. And to read about another celebrity family, check out Madonna's Daughter Lourdes Looks Just Like Her in New Ads.
The start of Dannielynn's life was tragic and tumultuous.
ABCThree days after Dannielynn was born in Sept. 2006, her 20-year-old half-brother Daniel Smith died of an accidental drug overdose in the hospital room while visiting his mother and new sister. Then, five months later, Smith also died of an accidental drug overdose at age 39.
Larry and Smith were not in a relationship at this point, and a legal battle began in the Bahamas—where Smith was living—in which Larry had to prove that he was Dannielynn's dad. Eventually, Larry was named the father and was granted custody of Dannielynn. They have since gone back to visit Dannielynn's birthplace of the Bahamas, including on what would have been Smith's 50th birthday in 2017.
The resemblance between Dannielynn and her mom is clear.
ABCThe trailer for the special shows side-by-side photos of Smith and her daughter in which you can see the resemblance. In one old photo of the model, seen here, she looks particularly like Dannielynn.
The 20/20 special sees an old friend of Smith's show Dannielynn and Larry around Smith's hometown of Mexia, Texas, where she was known as Vickie Lynn Hogan until she married Billy Smith when she was 17.
Read about the child of another celebrity who passed too soon with See James Gandolfini's Lookalike Son as Tony in the "Sopranos" Prequel.
In the special, Dannielynn and Larry travel to Texas and Los Angeles.
ABCIn addition to learning about Smith's past in Texas, the Birkheads also explore Smith's life in L.A. In the trailer, Larry says, "To be really honest, I didn't know a whole lot about Anna, you know, her early years." According to People, in Texas, they visit some of the places that she went to growing up, and in Los Angeles, they check out what's still in Smith's storage facility.
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Dannielynn's a normal teen for the most part.
Larry Birkhead/InstagramDannielynn largely lives the life of a regular teen with her father in Kentucky. "People always say, 'Is she going to be an actress? Is she going to be a model?'" Larry told Daily Mail TV in 2019. "And I never push her in a certain direction. 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." But Larry did note that Dannielynn enjoys acting in school productions.
She followed in her mom's footsteps when she was six.
GuessBack in 2012, Dannielynn did have one modeling gig. When she was six years old, she appeared in a Guess Kids ad, following in the footsteps of Smith, who was a Guess model.
"Dannielynn has always looked up to her mom’s image and ... I think that this is kind of Dannielynn’s way of paying tribute to her mom in her own special way," Larry said on Good Morning America at the time (via Us Weekly). "To see her mom’s picture next to hers as a Guess girl and say, 'Hey, I was a Guess Kids girl, my mommy was a Guess girl,' that might be her only connection with her mom."
For another celeb kid who's taking on a career like their late parent's, check out Paul Walker's Daughter Just Landed Her First Major Modeling Gig.
