A former boyfriend, Larry Birkhead, was identified on Tuesday as the father of Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith's 7-month-old daughter, Dannielynn.
NASSAU: A former boyfriend, Larry Birkhead, was identified on Tuesday as the father of Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith's 7-month-old daughter, Dannielynn, after DNA test results were released by a Bahamas court.
The revelation brought to an appropriately dramatic climax a tabloid maelstrom that was kicked off by Smith's abrupt death in a Florida hotel casino on Feb. 8 of an accidental drug overdose.
Dannielynn could one day be worth a fortune if Smith's estate wins a decade-long battle to inherit from former oil tycoon husband J. Howard Marshall.
"I hate to be the one to tell you this but, I told you so," Birkhead, a Los Angeles photographer, told reporters and sightseers outside the court in Nassau.
"Nothing's really determined except parentage and I'm the father."
"I'm going to the toy store," he said.
Smith's death touched off a battle among her mother, Virgie Arthur, longtime companion Howard K. Stern and Birkhead, not only for her body but also over custody of the buxom former topless dancer's baby.
Stern, who is listed on the baby's Bahamian birth certificate as the father, said he was disappointed when US DNA expert Michael Baird told Bahamas Supreme Court Justice Stephen Isaacs that Dannielynn's DNA was a more than 99.9 per cent match with Birkhead's.
"I'm going to do everything I can to make sure he gets sole custody," Stern said.
"This whole process, everything, has been very difficult."
Stern has vowed to ensure that Smith's estranged mother, Arthur, does not gain custody of Dannielynn. Court hearings over custody were to begin on Friday.
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