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Anna Nicole joins reality show craze

By Beth Harris The Associated Press
Friday August 02, 2002

 

LOS ANGELES – When last seen by America, Anna Nicole Smith was locked in a seven-year legal battle over her late husband’s Texas oil fortune. 

The former Playboy Playmate, who has yet to collect a dime, has decided it’s time to get back to work. 

So instead of seeing Smith in courtroom footage on the evening news, viewers can peep at her bizarre world when E! Entertainment Television debuts “The Anna Nicole Show” on Sunday at 10 p.m. 

Since May, cameras have been trailing the 34-year-old former stripper and Guess? model from the time she wakes up to the time she goes to bed. Among the scenes captured are Smith telling her black toy poodle to stop passing gas, and the buxom blonde looking into her shirt, saying “Hello, down there.” 

“I haven’t had sex in two years,” Smith grumbles on camera. 

Later, she has a twinge of regret. 

“That’s one of those things you say that you wish you didn’t,” Smith said later in an interview. She claims she isn’t dating anyone currently. 

Another embarrassing moment occurred when Smith forgot to turn off the microphones in the bathroom. 

Advertising for the show says, “It’s not supposed to be funny ... it just is.” 

Smith admits E! is probably making fun of her, but she plays the good sport. “My life is funny,” she said. “There’s things that happen to me all the time, and it just is funny.” 

A bankrupty court ruled in December 2000 that Smith was entitled to $475 million of her late husband’s fortune. A federal judge reduced that to $88 million in March, but the son of J. Howard Marshall plans to appeal. 

Marshall was 90 when he died in 1995, 14 months after marrying Smith. 

She doesn’t plan to discuss him on the show. “I’d like to keep that private,” she said with a straight face. 

Viewers can tag along as Smith goes bowling, hits the batting cage, checks out Hollywood parties, visits the dentist and takes driving lessons. 

Smith hardly goes anywhere without Sugar Pie, the Prozac-popping poodle with her own therapist. 

“If I go out somewhere, she won’t eat and she won’t drink and she just shakes until I get back,” Smith said. “She’s just crazy about her mom.” 

While Smith awaits the outcome of her legal battles, she plans to get back into modeling and write her memoirs. 

The woman who admires, and resembles, Marilyn Monroe and Christie Brinkley hopes the show gives her some credibility and boosts her acting career.