from www.heraldsun.com.au – THE estate of the late Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith is the threatening legal action over the Royal Opera House’s X-rated opera devoted to the colourful life and early death of Smith, her former flame Larry Birkhead told TMZ today.

“If [the producers] are not careful, they’ll get more than diet pills in the mail,” Mr Birkhead said in reference to Smith’s untimely death from a drug overdose in Hollywood, Florida, in 2007 at the age of 39.

Mr Birkhead, the former celebrity photographer who fathered a daughter with Smith, said the producers of the show did not contact Smith’s estate before moving forward with the opera he called “a sleazy tabloid”.

The production is littered with swearing and sexual references, including an explicit scene in which the actress portraying Smith performs oral sex on her wheelchair-bound octogenarian partner, said to represent her marriage to oil business mogul J Howard Marshall, who was 62 years her senior.

The Royal Opera House defended the commission arguing that the subject matter and cheaper tickets would help draw a new and younger audience to the libretto, although prospective attendees must reach a minimum age of 16.

Publicity materials warned of “extreme language, drug abuse and sexual content”, in the production that represents a life that took Smith from being a notorious sex symbol through vicious legal struggles and a fatal overdose four years ago.

Creator Richard Thomas is no stranger to controversy after co-writing Jerry Springer: The Opera, which was damned by some Christians for its portrayal of Jesus.

“Anna Nicole is grand opera, just like those of old, with a mix of comedy and horror,” Thomas said. “Having said that, it was very hard writing something which moved from crazy-arsed comedy to utter bleakness.”