LOS ANGELES – The 20-year-old son of Anna Nicole Smith died suddenly in the Bahamas on Sunday, three days after the former Playboy Playmate gave birth to a girl, Smith’s attorney said.
A statement from Howard K. Stern, Anna Nicole Smith’s attorney, did not provide any details of Daniel Smith’s death, and he declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.
“We have yet to learn the cause of death but do not believe that drugs or alcohol were a factor,” Stern said in the statement. “Anna Nicole is absolutely devastated by the loss of her son. He was her pride and joy and an amazing human being.”
Daniel Smith was in the Caribbean nation where his mother, 38, gave birth to a healthy girl on Thursday, Stern said.
He appeared in “The Anna Nicole Show,” a reality TV series that aired on the E! cable channel.
Since being named Playboy’s Playmate of the Year in 1993, the former Vicki Lynn Hogan from Mexia, Texas, has never been far from the public spotlight. In 1994, she married wheelchair-bound oil tycoon J. Marshall Howard, 89, after meeting him at a strip club.
His death, after 14 months of marriage, triggered a legal battle over his estate between Smith and his son, E. Pierce Marshall. Earlier this year, she won a U.S. Supreme Court decision giving her another chance to collect millions of dollars. Pierce Marshall died in June.
Smith has not said who fathered her second child.