The tragic story of Anna Nicole Smith as new Netflix documentary, You Don’t Know Me is released

Anna Nicole Smith is a name that many people have heard of but don’t really know who she is or what she was famous for. A new Netflix documentary released today (16 May) You Don’t Know Me featuring never before seen footage and directed by Ursula Macfarlane. It will look at the tragic life of the model and her untimely death at 39 years old. 

Anna (real name Vickie Lynn Hogan) was the 90s pin-up girl; her blonde locks and glamorous style was reminiscent of Marylin Monroe. The model rose to fame after being featured in Playboy magazine and was awarded ‘Playmate of the Year’ in 1993. She soon became the face of Guess jeans and modelled for H&M.

Anna featured in the movies The Naked Gun III and Skyscraper and was also the host of her own reality TV series The Anna Nicole Smith Show. Despite a successful modelling and acting career it was her outrageous behaviour and private life that people were more interested in.

Who was Anna Nicole married to? 

Anna was just 17 when she married Billy Wayne Smith who was 16 at the time. The couple wed in Texas and a year later welcomed her son Daniel Wayne Smith. In the trailer for the Netflix documentary Anna describes how she felt lonely and thought if she had a baby she would “never be lonely again.” 

Her marriage to billionaire J.[James] Howard Marshall catapulted Anna into the spotlight. After meeting at a strip club that Anna worked at she soon married the American businessman who was 89 years-old and Anna was 26. Anna was accused of being a gold digger with sources claiming she treated her husband like an ATM. 

Oil tycoon J.Howard died 13 months after the couple married and as Anna was not named in his will she ended up in a decade long court battle with his family over money from his estate. 

How many kids did Anna Nicole have? 

The model had a son Daniel with first husband and later a daughter Dannielynn with photographer Larry Birkhead but the couple never married. Larry had to fight Howard K Stern in a paternity case to prove he was Dannielynn's biological father. 

Sadly just a few days after Anna gave birth to her daughter, Daniel died from an accidental overdose. 

How did Anna Nicole die? 

A year after tragically losing her son and at the age of 39 Anna died of an accidental drug overdose from a combination of prescription drugs. 

At the time Howard K Stern told People “She was my best friend, my lover, the mother of my daughter. She was everything to me, literally everything. My whole world.”

“She thought she was going to be like Marilyn Monroe, she thought she would die at the age of 36 or 37.”

The Anna Nicole Smith: You Don’t Know Me documentary is available to watch on Netflix from 16 May