Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern
Gossip (Page 2)

Larry Birkhead continues to prove he's a much better father than Matt Leinart.

Granted, this is akin to Hillary Clinton proving she's more stable than Britney Spears, but that doesn't mean Birkhead isn't an excellent dad to Dannielynn.

As Us Weekly reports this week, father and daughter are doing well in the 55,000-square-foot, five-bedroom L.A. mansion that Anna Nicole Smith purchased in 2004. Moreover, Birkhead is making sure to keep Dannielynn's mother's memory alive.

"Larry says that it's important Dannielynn knows about her mom," his older sister, Judy Birkhead said. "He's always telling Dannielynn how much he loved Anna and how great she was."

Birkhead has plastered the residence with photos of Anna Nicole and "he'll point at pictures and show Dannielynn videos of her, too," Judy said.

Meanwhile, longtime friend Jane Rose-Zupetz told the magazine: "When Anna was pregnant, she painted a lot for Dannielynn. Larry will give her those, also."

For now, though, the next milestone is September 7. That's when Dannielynn becomes the next celebrity baby - following in the adorable footsteps of Shiloh Nouvel - to turn one. Birkhead is planning a big birthday bash, and 200 guests have been invited to celebrate, including Dolly Parton, Dannielynn's favorite singer.

"It's a celebration for Dannielynn, but it's also a celebration for what Larry had to go through to hold his daughter," Rose-Zupetz said.

Also in this week's issue of Us: Articles about Criss Angel possibly getting it on with Spears; and Spencer Pratt tricking Heidi Montag in some way. Sounds like a must-read!

If you think Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt love the gym, you ain't seen nothing yet!

Larry Birkhead says being a dad is "the best experience of my life." He absolutely can't get enough of the gig.

Moreover, Anna Nicole Smith's ex-lover reveals his pet name for his 10-month-old daughter, Dannielynn.

"I call her 'Little Monkey,' " the Birkhead told People magazine at the Hollywood premiere of The Bourne Ultimatum Wednesday. "[It's] because she just rolls around like a little monkey all the time with me. I call her 'Cricket' sometimes too."

Birkhead also said he's been overwhelmed by all the support â€" and gifts â€" he's received since winning custody of the baby, a tyke that's considered even cuter than Jayden James Federline.

"You know I get tons of things from people who I've never even met before and so everything means a lot to me."

He added, "[Dannielynn] loves all kind of toys. She loves anything that makes noises and sounds and lights, and she's really alert â€" she's just a great baby!"

Lastly, Birkhead makes a statement that maybe Matt Leinart should pay attention to. He says being a dad is "the best experience of my life. I get up early in the morning and I run in as soon as I hear the first cries and I take a peek at my daughter and scoop her up. It's great! It's a lot of fun [and] it's a lot of hours."

Sort of like being the publicist for Britney Spears. Minus all the fun.

Life is pretty good for Larry Birkhead.

He and 9-month-old Dannielynn recently moved into Anna Nicole Smith's Los Angeles-area home - and over the weekend, the pair celebrated its first Father's Day as a family.

"I spent lots of time with her," Birkhead said to People magazine about little Dannielynn. "Just private time. We had a great day."

Birkhead and Howard K. Stern arrived in Los Angeles a few days ahead of the guardian hearing. Stern even helped Birkhead settle into the two-story stucco house Smith had shared with son Daniel, who died at age 20 three days after Danielynn was born.

"Honestly, for me, it was really hard," Stern said. "I was with her when she picked out that house, and for me, pretty much every item brings back memories. And I'm still having problems even accepting the fact that Anna and Daniel are gone. Anna Nicole was my whole joy in life, my whole reason for being."

At least he can watch Willa Ford portray his former love on screen in the near future.

In a slap to the cute faces of Jayden James Federline and Suri Cruise, Stern - who for now is staying with family in the L.A. area - said Dannielynn is "the most famous baby in America," but he hopes the attention will cool off:

"Hopefully you will give her some respect and allow her to lead a normal life, or at least as normal of a life as possible."

Meanwhile, a loving gesture to his daughter, Birkhead said he has no problem with Dannielynn spending time with the people who were in her life before her mother's death in February. Including Stern.

"Dannielynn seems just as happy as can be," Stern said. "I wish that Anna could see her now. It's just horrible that she can't."

We agree. And hope this tragedy can put things in perspective for whiners such as Tom Sizemore.

It's Larry Birkhead's baby - and he'll file for sole custody of her if he wants to.

After almost two weeks of relative calm in the custody battle over Anna Nicole Smith's daughter, Dannielynn, the case is back in court.

Birkhead filed a petition in probate court yesterday to be appointed as the sole guardian of the Estate of 8 month-old Dannielynn Marshall Birkhead. The man who triumphed over Howard K. Stern asks the court to name him as guardian "in order to represent his daughter's interest in the probate proceedings for the Estate of Vickie Lynn Marshall, aka Anna Nicole Smith."

Birkhead's hearing is set for June 19.

Meanwhile, according to Smith's will, Stern has been named special administrator as well as executor of her estate. Smith's personal attorney Ron Rale was named second executor.

There's no word on the role Willa Ford will play in all this yet.

The will, which Smith signed and dated on July 30th, 2001, before Dannielynn's birth and son Daniel's death, lists her sole child as Daniel Wayne Smith. It will directs that all of Smith's property, after the payment of taxes, be distributed to Stern, who will hold it in a trust for her child, Daniel.

Of course, we all know that tragically happened there.

In other unfortunate news, Larry Birkhead, who arrived in the states with Dannielynn on May 1, should prepare for a challenge to his request for guardianship from Anna Nicole Smith's mother, Virgie Arthur.

She's competing with Candy Spelling and Dina Lohan for worst mother in the world.

Larry Birkhead is smiling a lot these days.

Sure, it may be because Dannielynn is finally his for the taking. But the reported $1 Birkhead received from NBC in exchange for all the scoops he's been giving the network during the saga can't hurt, either.

An insider tells the New York Post gossip column that the network's parent company, NBC Universal, made a deal with Dannielynn's biological father shortly after the Anna Nicole Smith funeral - and that's why the photographer has been giving exclusives to the network's Today show and Access Hollywood programs and its Bravo channel.

A rep for Bravo confirmed to Page Six: "NBC Universal has an exclusive contract with Larry Birkhead and we don't discuss the terms of our deals."

Birkhead and his lawyer, Debra Opri were spotted several times on the network, while Access Hollywood was the first to report it when these two parted ways.

It's the sort of inside knowledge that Britney Spears will reportedly deliver to fans in a new book.

After the Bahamian court ruled that Birkhead was the biological father of Smith's baby, he immediately went on the Today show to describe his joy, gushing, "Yesterday was just a great day for me and Dannielynn."

Meanwhile, the tyke will need to get used to a new name. She's officially been christened Dannielynn Hope Marshall Birkhead.

It's not as drastic a moniker change as the one Jayden James had to go through (anyone remember Sutton Pierce Federline?), but it's something.

Lost amidst the debate over whether or not Howard K. Stern is a murderer is this fact:

• Virgie Arthur may be more of a gold digger than Heather Mills.

Granted, Virgie doesn't get naked and bend over (thank goodness) to milk money from rich, famous husbands. But she does try to deny the father of a baby custody to his child so she can profit off the death of her daughter. That ain't so nice, either.

Indeed, TMZ has learned Arthur has filed an appeal, attempting to block the ability of Larry Birkhead ability to take baby Dannielynn to the U.S.

The crazy, selfish, money-hungry mother of Anna Nicole Smith has objected to a judge's ruling allowing Birkhead to take his little girl to the States, providing that he returns with his baby for a June 9 custody hearing.

Arthur's appeal is unusual to say the least - after all, she is a grandmother who herself lives in the U.S. Ironically, she is the one who argued that Anna and her son be buried in Texas and not the Bahamas. Now, she wants Dannielynn to stay in the Bahamas.

There will be public court hearing tomorrow. But there's a response from The Hollywood Gossip staff right now: Virgie makes a baked bean-throwing Hugh Grant look rational.

** Update: Hours after we ran this post, a Bahamian judge denied Virgie's appeal, calling it "weak" and ordering her to pay $3,000 in attorney's fees for wasting the court's time.

If people can stop complaining about the choice of Willa Ford to portray Anna Nicole Smith on screen for a moment, they could appreciate the following good news:

On Thursday, a Bahamas judge cleared Larry Birkhead to leave the country with his daughter, Dannielynn.

According to sources close to Howard K. Stern, who has raised Dannielynn since her birth on Sept. 7, Birkhead will take the infant home to the U.S. on Friday. And maybe normalcy will return to the child's life.

Stern is reportedly "upset and heartbroken" and finds himself facing the reality of being "single and on his own for the first time in many years," a source close to him says.

Still, he told Access Hollywood: "I just want Dannielynn to have a good life, and I'm hopeful that Larry is going to provide that for her, so it's bittersweet. It's hard, but I just want her to be as happy as she can be."

A source tells Reuters that, in exchange for allowing Birkhead to leave the Bahamas with Dannielynn, the court required that he return to the country for another formal custody hearing on June 8. Birkhead has been battling with Smith's awful mother, Virgie Arthur, over custody.

Sources say the photographer will first bring Dannielynn back to his hometown of Louisville, Ky., where his father â€" who recently suffered a heart attack â€" is looking forward to meeting his granddaughter. We just hope, unlike the stepfather of Shyamali Malakar, this guy doesn't make her smoke pot.

Finally, Stern will remain in the Bahamas and is expected to write a book about his life with Smith. "It will be a giant money making cathartic experience for him," says a source.

And not the least bit exploitive of the woman and baby he supposedly loves.

Awwww ....

It may have taken an unusual amount of time - and the tragic death of Anna Nicole Smith - but father and daughter have finally been united.

Tabloid magazine OK! has published the first-ever pictures of Larry Birkhead caressing the adorable Dannielynn, an event months and months in the making.

In an interview, Birkhead states that contrary to what people may think, Anna's lover and evil lawyer, Howard K. Stern, has been "a great help" with the baby, adding: "Howard did things for Anna that no one wanted to. I actually feel sorry for Howard."

Sure, that's easy to say now that Dannielynn is all yours. At The Hollywood Gossip, we find it difficult to conjure up sympathy for someone that did so little to help Anna Nicole during her worst times.

But on a day when Suri Cruise turns one year old, only this cute kid could knock her off the headlines. We wish Larry and baby D all the best.

Larry Birkhead may be the biological fathr of Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern.

But you can be the owner of her official URL!

Dr. Mark Moore has purchased the domain name "Dannielynbirkhead.com" and is selling it on eBay for a million dollars. He must be banking on Larry actually changing the last name of Dannielynn to match his own.

The practicing anesthesiologist, who owns several businesses, bought the name a couple months ago for $4.95. Moore has the name up on eBay on the auction block, with a starting bid of $250,000. But you can "Buy it Now" for a cool million - about the same price as many guys would pay to see Katie Price nude.

TMZ spoke to John Shaw, an employee of Moore, who told us that when the Anna Nicole Smith story started heating up, he got the call to purchase the domain. When asked about their projected financial gain, he said:

"I would expect this to yield much for that five bucks."

We'll see if he's right. As far as we're concerned, the only thing we'd pay one million dollars for is the elimination of Sanjaya Malakar from American Idol.

Here's a result about as shocking as news of a Jason Wahler arrest:

Larry Birkhead is the father of Anna Nicole Smith's 7-month-old daughter, Dannielynn.

"I hate to be the one who told you this, but: I told you so," Birkhead told reporters outside the Bahamas courthouse. "I'm the father."

"Thank you for your support. Thank you for the people who got me this far," he said, choking up.

"Thank you very much. My baby's gonna be coming home pretty soon."

Asked about when he would take Dannielynn home, he said, "Things are moving quickly here, and we'll see what happens."

Reportedly, the deranged mother of Anna Nicole Smith - Virgie Arthur - is still fighting for custody and the group will be back in court on Friday.

Birkhead had submitted his own DNA for testing, while Dannielynn's was tested on March 21 following a recommendation by a Bahamas Supreme Court Judge. Howard K. Stern, Smith's companion who is named as Dannielynn's father on her birth certificate, did not undergo DNA testing.

But he was surprisingly supporting of Birkhead, saying: "I am obviously very disappointed ... I am not going to fight Larry Birkhead for custody. I will do everything I can to make sure he gets sole custody."

Good. Now that this business is behind us, we can go back to focusing on important topics such as what the heck is going on with Britney Spears' boobs.