Anna Nicole Smithwas famous for three years. She was infamous for 12, until her death from an accidental overdose in 2007.
In that time, the Texas native soared to the heights of celebrity and then fell and fell and fell.
Now, a new Netflix documentary (streaming May 16),Anna Nicole Smith: You Don’t Know Me, examines her life and uncovers some of the lies — and loves — she kept hidden.
“She was this icon of female perfection,” director Ursula Macfarlane tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story. “Throughout her life, she was just trying to be what she thought other people wanted her to be. I don’t know if Anna Nicole truly knew who she herself was.”
In 1992, Smith’s extraordinary beauty launched her from a small-town fried chicken joint server to the cover ofPlayboyand the face of Guess jeans. She earned parts in movies such asNaked Gun 33 1/3andThe Hudsucker Proxy. She smoldered from billboards, charmed late-night hosts likeJay LenoandArsenio Hall, and walked the red carpet atthe Oscars.
Anna Nicole Smith.DMI/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
She was a constant (and lucrative) target of the paparazzi.
“Hollywood put her in the fast lane,” says Smith’s Uncle George Beall, who recalls her wanting to be a comedic actress likeCarol Burnettas a teenager. “I think it ruined her more than anything.”
There are, however, some lingering questions about Smith.
“She made a lot of stuff up,” her friend Missy Byrum puts it bluntly.
Wayne Maser/Guess?, Inc.
Byrum, 55, met “Nicki” at a Houston strip club where the two worked in the early 1990s. Smith, who’d chosen Nicki as a stage name, wasn’t like a lot of the dancers. “All of us girls were abused in some way and we shared about it,” Byrum says. “She didn’t have any of that in her past.”
Emotional algebra was solved: Sad stories equal attention. Later Byrum was shocked to find Smith was sharing Byrum’s story of abuse as her own.
“Nicki adapted to get what she needed,” Byrum says. “She started to manifest the character of Anna Nicole” years before Guess designer Paul Marciano gave her the name. “She learned from stripping that guys like to believe you’re stupid if you’re that pretty. She always said, ‘It takes a smart person to be really dumb.'”
It also took some work to become Anna Nicole Smith. “She had all sorts of cosmetic procedures,” says Byrum. “They cut her gums to make her teeth larger. Her boobs had stretch marks from having Daniel so she had some cosmetic guy grind off all the skin around her areolas. She was in constant pain.” She hadfour breast augmentations. “That’s where her addiction to pain pills began,” says Byrum (who herself has struggled with substance abuse). “I have never seen anybody like it. She could take 15 Klonopins and 12 Valiums and drink on top of that.”
By the time Smith found fame, she was already involved with Marshall, whom she’d met while dancing. He bought her a house, diamonds, a car and offered her and her son Daniel stability.
“She really loved him,” says Beall. “The way he took care of her and looked out for her — she cared about him a lot. She didn’t want people to think that she was after his money. [Her] Aunt Kay and I both said, ‘Ifyou love him, to heck with what people think!'”
He was also open-minded. “Mr. Marshall was a very intelligent man,” says Byrum. “He knew that she was a young woman and needed certain things. He allowed her to have her boy toys or whatever.”
Everyone fell in love with Smith, Byrum says. “I did too.”
courtesy netflix
Byrum says she walked away from Smith when Smith’s addiction became too much to handle. “She needed more love than any one human being could give her.”
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Smith’s closest friends, who include Pol’ Atteu and Simpon insist Anna Nicole was a character. The couple — who have an atelier in Beverly Hills and a reality show calledGown and Out in Beverly Hills— became close with Smith in the last years of her life.
“She was playing the part of Anna Nicole,” says Atteu. “There were two different people. One was the celebrity superstar and television personality. Over the top, dumb blonde, what people wanted her to be, what would get her a paycheck.”
The other was deeply human. “The intimate, real Anna Nicole. The shrewd businesswoman,” he says, describing a woman who made deals with the paparazzi, tipping them off to her whereabouts, to make money. The one who figured out that sad stories about her pay more. Even if they are not her own.
Notes documentary producer Alexandra Lacey: “We idealize these types of celebrities, usually women, oftentimes blonde. Then they show us flaws, vulnerabilities, and in her case, a lot of physical and psychological pain. Then, suddenly, we don’t wanna know them anymore.”
Smith’s mother, Virgie Mae Hogan, who died in 2018, once asked her daughter why she lies so much. Hogan shares this story in the documentary, recounting Smith’s response: “I make more money telling sad stories than I make telling good stories. Any time my name is in the news, I am making money. If it’s bad, something really bad, I make 50 times the amount I make if it’s good.”
Anna Nicole Smith.Ron Davis/Getty
Today, while it’s clear her loved ones still wish her peace, it’s also apparent they understood Anna Nicole Smith.
“There was such a circus when she died,” remembers Byrum. “She would’ve loved it. I thought, ‘She’s gonna die just like she lived. She’s gonna get all the attention.’ And she did.”
For more on Anna Nicole Smith, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribehere.
Anna Nicole Smith: You Don’t Know Mestreams on Netflix starting May 16.
source: people.com
