While working at Jim's Krispy Fried Chicken in
Mexia, Smith met Billy Wayne Smith, a cook at the restaurant, and the couple married on April 4, 1985, when he was 16 and she was 17. She gave birth to their son, Daniel Wayne Smith, on January 22, 1986. Smith and her husband separated the following year and divorced in 1993. While performing at a Houston strip club in October 1991, Smith met 86-year-old
petroleum tycoon
J. Howard Marshall. On June 27, 1994, Smith and Marshall were married in
Houston, resulting in speculation that
she married him for his money. Marshall died on August 4, 1995, in Houston, at the age of 90.
Court cases and bankruptcy In October 1994, Smith initiated a $5 million lawsuit against the
New York magazine, claiming that she did not authorize the use of her photo on the cover of its magazine titled "White Trash Nation" and that the article damaged her reputation. The lawsuit was settled. Even though Smith was not in Marshall's
will, she claimed that in return for marriage, Marshall verbally promised her half of his
estate, which primarily consisted of a 16% interest in
Koch, Inc., then worth $1.6 billion. Smith's stepson
E. Pierce Marshall disputed the claim. Smith temporarily joined forces with J. Howard's other son,
J. Howard Marshall III, who was disowned after attempting to take control of Koch. Howard III also claimed that his father had verbally promised him a portion of the estate; like Smith, Howard III was also left out of his father's will. In 1996, Smith filed for
bankruptcy in
California as a result of an $850,000
default judgment against her for the
sexual harassment of a nanny who cared for her son. In September 2000, a
Los Angeles bankruptcy judge awarded Smith $449,754,134.00, the amount that Marshall's interest in Koch appreciated during their marriage. However, in July 2001, Houston judge Mike Wood affirmed the jury's findings in the probate case by ruling that Smith was entitled to nothing. The judge ordered Smith to pay over $1 million to cover the legal costs and expenses of E. Pierce Marshall. The conflict between the Texas probate court and California bankruptcy court judgments forced the matter into
federal court. In March 2002, a federal judge vacated the California bankruptcy court's ruling and issued a new ruling that reduced the award to $88 million. On December 30, 2004, a three-judge panel of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed that decision on the grounds that the federal courts lacked jurisdiction to overrule the probate court's decision. In September 2005, the
U.S. Supreme Court decided to hear the appeal of that decision. The
George W. Bush administration directed
Paul Clement, the
United States Solicitor General, to intercede on Smith's behalf in the interest of expanding federal court jurisdiction over state
probate disputes. On May 1, 2006, the Supreme Court unanimously decided in favor of Smith. Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the opinion. The decision did not give Smith a portion of her husband's estate, but affirmed her right to pursue a share of it in federal court. On June 20, 2006, E. Pierce Marshall died at age 67 from an
infection. His widow and estate executor
Elaine Tettemer Marshall, pursued the case on behalf of his estate. After Smith's death in 2007, the case continued on behalf of Smith's infant daughter,
Dannielynn Birkhead. In March 2010, an appeals court upheld the verdict barring Smith from the estate. Following the decision, lawyers for Smith's estate appealed the decision to the entire Ninth Circuit. On May 6, 2010, the appeal was denied. In June 2011, in the case of
Stern v. Marshall, the Supreme Court issued a ruling against Smith's estate, stating that the California bankruptcy court decision that gave her estate $475 million was made without
subject-matter jurisdiction. The court agreed with the ruling of the Ninth Circuit that a bankruptcy court could not make a decision on an issue outside bankruptcy law. In August 2014,
David O. Carter, a federal U.S. District Court judge in
Orange County, California, rejected efforts to obtain about $44 million from the J. Howard Marshall estate.
Birth of daughter A psychiatrist said she met with Smith in April 2006 at
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles while she was pregnant with her daughter, and that she believed that Smith had
borderline personality disorder, and was
addicted to prescription medications. On June 1, 2006, Smith announced her pregnancy in a video clip on her official website. She gave birth to a daughter, Dannielynn, on September 7, 2006, in
New Providence,
Commonwealth of the Bahamas. In an interview on
CNN's
Larry King Live after the death of Smith's son, attorney
Howard K. Stern said that he and Smith had been in a relationship for "a very long time" and said he was the father. Entertainment photographer Larry Birkhead claimed that he was the baby's father and filed a lawsuit to establish paternity. The Bahamian
birth certificate recorded the father as Stern. A judge in the United States ordered that
DNA paternity tests be performed to determine Dannielynn's biological father. Following Smith's death, Birkhead's attorney asked for an emergency DNA sample to be taken from Smith's body. The request was denied by a judge who ordered that her body be preserved until February 20. On February 9, 2007,
Zsa Zsa Gabor's husband,
Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt, stated that he had had a decade-long affair with Smith and could potentially be the father of her daughter. Smith's former bodyguard and chef, Alexander Denk, also claimed that he had an affair with Smith and that he, too, was potentially the father. After Smith's death, the
TMZ website reported that she had been given a prescription for
methadone under a false name while she was in her eighth month of pregnancy. The
Medical Board of California launched a review into the matter. The prescribing doctor, Sandeep Kapoor, said the treatment he had administered was "sound and appropriate". In April 2007, a Bahamian judge ruled that DNA tests had established Birkhead as the biological father. Birkhead subsequently applied for an amended birth certificate listing him as Dannielynn's father, paving the way for him to obtain a
passport for the baby to leave with him for the United States. Stern did not contest the DNA results or the ruling, and Birkhead returned to the United States with the baby. Smith's mother, Virgie Arthur, appealed the ruling, but her appeal was denied and she was ordered to pay costs. , March 2005
Death of son On September 10, 2006, Smith's twenty-year-old son Daniel Wayne Smith died in his mother's hospital room while visiting her and his half-sister Dannielynn, who was born three days earlier on September 7. An autopsy found that Daniel had died from a combination of drugs, including
methadone and antidepressants. A Bahamian jury determined that he had died from an accidental drug overdose and recommended no criminal charges. A
death certificate was issued on September 21, 2006. Daniel was buried at Lake View Cemetery in
New Providence on October 19, 2006. According to Stern, Smith was devastated by her son's death. "Anna and Daniel were inseparable. Daniel was without question the most important person in Anna's life," Stern said during his testimony at the trial regarding the right to control disposition of Smith's remains. "At Daniel's funeral, she had them open the coffin and tried to climb inside. She said that 'if Daniel has to be buried, I want to be buried with him.' She was ready to go down with him." Stern said that, "Anna saw herself as both mother and father to Daniel. From the time I met her, everything was for Daniel. I would say that physically, she died last week, but in a lot of ways, emotionally she died when Daniel died."
Commitment ceremony with Stern On September 28, 2006, Smith and Stern exchanged vows and rings in an informal commitment ceremony in the Bahamas. Although they pledged their love and made a commitment to be there for each other before a
Baptist minister, no marriage certificate was issued and the ceremony did not create a legal marriage. Regarding the questionable timing of the ceremony, Smith's attorney in Nassau said, "They needed a little adrenaline boost because things have been so hectic and devastating in their life recently." Ceremony photos were sold through
Getty Images to
People magazine for $1 million.
Residency in the Bahamas Smith and Stern were reportedly staying in
the Bahamas to avoid
paternity testing of her daughter in the United States. In late 2006, Smith was granted permanent resident status in the Bahamas by Immigration Minister
Shane Gibson. A local newspaper published photographs showing Smith lying clothed in bed in an embrace with Gibson. Gibson resigned after the wave of controversy over his relationship with Smith. The basis of Smith's permanent residency status was the claim that she owned a $900,000 mansion, which she said was given to her by a former boyfriend, real estate developer
Gaither Ben Thompson of
South Carolina. Thompson asserted that he loaned Smith the finances to purchase the property, which she failed to repay, and that he was attempting to regain control of it. Thompson sued to evict Smith from the property in the Bahamas Court and received a
default judgment against her. It was claimed that methadone was found in Smith's bedroom refrigerator while the mansion was being reclaimed. A photograph provided to
TMZ of Smith's refrigerator showed a large bottle labelled methadone, vials of injectable vitamin B12 (
cyanocobalamin), and numerous bottles of diet product
SlimFast. ==Death==