Larry Birkhead

Larry E. Birkhead (born January 22, 1973[1]) is a former partner of American Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith. He is the father of her daughter Dannielynn Hope Marshall Birkhead.[2] He obtained full custody of his daughter after DNA results proved his paternity in April 2007.

Personal life
Birkhead, the son of Larry L. Birkhead and Nancy Birkhead, is a native of Louisville, Kentucky. Birkhead has a twin brother Lewis, as well as a sister, Angela Heuser, and a half-sister, Judy Birkhead. He graduated in 1991 from Louisville's Doss High School.[3][4] He holds a 1999 degree from the University of Louisville.[5] Birkhead and Smith initially met in May 2004 at the Trish Barnstable Brown Gala,[6] one of the major Louisville-area Kentucky Derby parties that attracts many celebrities.

On April 10, 2007, a Bahamian court ruled that DNA testing proved that Larry Birkhead is the father of Dannielynn, the daughter of Victoria Hoffman.[7] Birkhead resided in Los Angeles, but as of 2015, he has been living with Dannielynn in Prospect, Kentucky.[8]

Larry and Dannielynn participated in several TV shows: Life after Anna on E! Network, Wife Swap, The Millionaire Matchmaker, Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, Inside Edition, Hollywood Medium with Tyler Henry, Wendy Williams Show, Steve Harvey, RTL Television.[9][10][11]

Claim of paternity
Although several men also claimed paternity, including Howard K. Stern, Mark Hatten, Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt, and Smith's former bodyguard, Alexander Denk, a DNA test provided by Michael L. Baird proved that Birkhead had fathered Smith's infant daughter, then named Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern.[12] Smith had claimed that her attorney and partner, Stern, was the father.[13]

In April 2007, a Bahamian court ordered custody of Dannielynn to be transferred from Stern to Birkhead, who corrected her birth certificate to show him as father and renamed her Dannielynn Hope Marshall Birkhead. Smith's mother Virgie Arthur filed for the custody of Dannielynn and tried to block Birkhead from leaving the country with the baby. Bahamas judge in the Court of Appeals in Nassau tossed out Virgie Arthur's appeal and ordered her to pay $3000 in attorney's fees.[14]