Anna Nicole Smith: A Playboy Bunny’s Battle for a $12 Billion Inheritance

Anna Nicole Smith She knew how to avoid going unnoticed. You have had a life shrouded in scandal. Born in a small Texas town, she was a very young single mother. But behind that humble beginning, she dreamed big, very big.

At the age of 26, in 1995, she married an 89-year-old oil tycoon, who died a year after marrying her. Furthermore, after a long legal battle, he was left without an inheritance. According to Forbes, Howard Marshall was worth $12 billion. The case is reflected in a series that Netflix released a month ago.

Anne Nicola Smith, whose real name was Vickie Lynn Hogan, was born on November 18, 1967 in Houston, Texas. Her life was full of drama. She dropped out of high school, married at 17, had her first child at 18, and separated at 19.

Smith worked at Walmart and Red Lobster before landing what would change her life: a dancer at Gigi’s Cabaret. She said it was there that she met her future husband, Howard Marshall, then 86, who was brought into the club one night in 1991 to watch her undress. Marshall was depressed, friends say, following the deaths that year of two central women in his life: his wife, Bettye, and his mistress, Lady Walker, 51. He called the latter “the most tragic thing that has happened to me”.

By the late 1980s, Marshall was wealthy after successful years. His big money moves came in the 1950s and 1960s. Almost all of this story took place before Anna Nicole Smith was born. The businessman’s fortune was valued at 12,000 million dollars.

Smith said Marshall spent about $1,000 on her the first night they met. The next day, he invited her to meet him in a hotel room for lunch. After that, he gave her an envelope full of cash and told her that she shouldn’t dance at the club anymore.

Marshall had a crush on her and spent, he said, $1.7 million on her in 1992 (about $3.8 million in today’s dollars), including paying for another breast augmentation surgery. She even put her on Marshall Petroleum’s payroll as a consultant, a rumor that seemed preposterous but was confirmed when Smith declared the income in legal filings years later.

At the same time, Smith’s modeling career was heating up. She had sent pictures of her to Playboy magazine and caught Hugh Hefner’s attention. She appeared on a magazine cover in 1992 and was named Playmate of the Year in 1993. His reward? A Jaguar convertible, $100,000 and a 10-page cover in the June 1993 issue.

Smith eventually divorced her first husband, paving the way for her to marry Marshall, then 89, in 1994. Smith was just 26 years old. She wore a 22-carat diamond, reportedly worth $107,000, at the Houston drive-in wedding chapel ceremony. Marshall was led after her down the corridor.

The marriage only lasted about 13 months. Marshall died in 1995 at the age of 90. His fortune was worth $1.6 billion at the time, about $3.2 billion today.

When the businessman died, he did not provide for Smith in his will or funds, a move Marshall’s son E. Pierce Marshall would have called worthwhile. Smith, however, claimed that although Marshall had left her out of his will, he had planned to take care of her, including promising to give her half of his estate. .

Court cases can sometimes make strange bedfellows, as it did here. Pierce would benefit from his father’s death under the will, but Marshall’s other son, J. Howard Marshall, III, was, like Smith, excluded from the will. Marshall had never forgiven his namesake for backing William and Frederick Koch for control of Koch Industries, leaving J. Howard III penniless. As a result, Smith and J. Howard III teamed up to fight Pierce for what they claimed were their respective fair shares.

The matter reached a Texas probate court, which after a six-month trial ruled in favor of Pierce, one of the late millionaire’s sons.

Smith, however, didn’t stop. On January 25, 1996, the former bunny filed for bankruptcy in California, claiming he had debts in excess of $1,000,000 which he could not pay. Included in the list of creditors were several law firms, Harry Winston, Neiman Marcus, and a nearly $850,000 judgment awarded to María Antonia Cerrato in a sexual harassment, sexual assault, and false imprisonment lawsuit.

Cerrato, who had been babysitting Smith’s son, had alleged that Smith sexually assaulted her during a business trip to Las Vegas. Smith responded but did not follow up, so a judge ruled that Smith had to pay Cerrato.

The idea of ​​the bankruptcy court is to protect the debtor and make sure that creditors are paid what they are owed to the extent possible. This means that when you file for bankruptcy, you must list your debts, what Smith did, and your assets. Smith didn’t have many assets relative to his debts, listing about $2.7 million in real and personal property compared to nearly $9 million in potential liabilities. She included another asset in her petition: her alleged interest in her late husband’s property.

Meanwhile, Pierce, the millionaire’s son, fought back, suing Smith for libel and other damages in Texas. When he found out about the bankruptcy, he filed his defamation lawsuit in Texas and instead sought relief in bankruptcy court, a move he probably later regretted. He alleged misconduct on Smith’s part. In response, Smith countered, claiming Pierce interfered with his right to assume ownership of the Marshall estate. The legal documents set the stage for a lengthy California court case.

Just over two months later, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Smith’s favor. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg expressed the Court’s opinion, with Justice Stevens concurring (meaning she agreed with the finding but she had something to add). In particular, the Court found that “the probate objection reserves to the state probate courts the probate or annulment of a will and the administration of the estate of the deceased … But it does not preclude the federal courts from deciding matters outside those limits.” and within federal jurisdiction.

This mattered, Ginsburg wrote, because Smith’s claim did not “involve the administration of an estate, probate or any other purely legal matter.” Instead, Smith was “provoked by Pierce’s claim in bankruptcy proceedings” and was seeking a judgment against Pierce, not a probate or annulment of a will. With that, on May 1, 2006, the Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit findings and remanded the matter for review.

There have been countless lawsuits, court cases, and two court appeals over more than 10 years.

Marshall’s son Pierce died on June 20, 2006. His widow, Elaine Marshall, stepped into his shoes to bring the relationship to an end, which was over ten years old.

Smith died on February 8, 2007 of an accidental prescription drug overdose. he was 39 years old. She left behind a young daughter, Dannielynn Birkhead (her eldest son, Danny, died of a drug overdose in 2006), and the matter continued on Birkhead’s behalf.

As before, the courts could not agree. And so, on September 28, 2010, the Supreme Court again agreed to hear the case. This time, the title of the case was a little different: Stern v. Marshal. Stern, an attorney, claimed to be the father of Smith’s daughter, Dannielynn, even adding Stern to his last name, until a paternity test proved otherwise and found the father to be Larry Birkhead (many men had claimed to be the father). Zsa Zsa Gabor’s husband, Prince Frederic von Anhalt). Despite his lack of authorship, Stern represented Dannielynn in the battle against Pierce because he was the executor of Smith’s estate.

In June 2011, a divided Supreme Court ruled against the estate, 5 to 4. The question was, again, narrow: Was the bankruptcy court competent to deal with Smith’s counterclaim?

By law, a bankruptcy judge can only “submit fact-finding proposals and conclusions of law to the district court.” The bankruptcy court concluded that Smith’s counterclaim was central proceeding, while the district court disagreed.

Ultimately, the Supreme Court concluded that while the statute allows the bankruptcy court to render a final judgment on Smith’s counterclaim, “Article III of the Constitution does not permit it.” With this, the Supreme Court rejected the bankruptcy petition. And Smith’s daughter has nothing.

Throughout the process, the Marshalls remained wealthy. In 2020, Forbes listed the Marshall family as one of the richest families in America. With a net worth of $18.5 billion, they ranked 14th on the list.

Smith’s bankruptcy case was finally closed on October 24, 2022, more than 25 years after it began.