he best way to exact revenge on a man who, for more than seven months, served as your nemesis both in and out of the courtroom and who did everything in his power to keep you from seeing your child?
Why, sing his praises in a national magazine, of course.
Larry Birkhead has done just that with former adversary Howard K. Stern, telling OK! magazine that, since being named the biological father of daughter Dannielynn, Anna Nicole Smith’s former sidekick has been one of Birkhead’s greatest allies in preparing for his role as a parent.
“Howard’s been helpful,” he says in the Apr. 30 issue, due on newsstands Friday. “It seems unlikely, but he’s been a great help. He’s been with Dannielynn the last several months. He knows her likes and dislikes and things that could help me. He gives me credit when I’m doing good things and gives me tips on things I should do a little different.”
The 34-year-old insta-daddy, whose DNA match was confirmed in a Bahamian court Apr. 10, even goes so far as to peg Stern as misunderstood and unfairly vilified for being portrayed as the puppet master who coerced Smith into fleeing to the Bahamas for the birth of the child.
“People blame him a lot, but Anna had her own mind, too,” he tells the magazine. “She had a choice, and we were arguing, and that’s what happens…[Dannielynn is] so sweet and so cute, arguing is just going to hurt her and not help us any.”
However, there’s one person Birkhead is preparing to confront: Virgie Arthur.
Smith’s estranged mother, who previously threw her legal weight behind a Birkhead paternity victory, is currently doing all she can in Bahamian court to be granted some custody rights of Dannielynn. The legal fight has been delayed to Friday to allow for private talks between the once united twosome.
However, Birkhead says that while Arthur is more than welcome in his daughter’s life, a share in custody is not hers—or anyone’s—for the taking.
“It’s puzzling for her to display affection to me, and then for the attorneys to say she’s going for custody and Larry was just a sperm donor and a one-night stand,” he says. “If she wants to be a grandmother, that’s fine. I have a mother that wants to be a grandmother and she’s not asking for all these things, so it’s kind of puzzling.
“My mom would like to see the baby on certain days, but she’s not going to keep me to a schedule. I’m willing to listen to see what people want, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to agree. I hope I don’t have to fight for the baby.”
Despite being “tired of war,” Birkhead is ready to go back into battle over his parenting rights, particularly if it provides the entertainment value that the last go-round did.
When asked what he thought of Prince Frederik Von Anhalt’s claim that he, too, could be Dannielynn’s father, Birkhead calls it “funny.”
“I’d pop popcorn and sit in front of the television just to laugh at him.”
As it is, the papa has already conducted his first order of business while on daddy duty: adjusting the child’s name, listed on the birth certificate as Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern, to more accurately reflect her parentage.
“Stern’s gone, Birkhead’s on,” he says.
Dannielynn, however, is staying put, even though it wasn’t among the choices when Birkhead and Smith discussed possible baby names—Niko for a boy and Annabella or Marilyn Nicole, “after Marilyn Monroe,” for a girl. (The baby is named in honor of Smith’s son, Daniel, who died just three days after Dannielynn’s birth.)
Birkhead also opens up about when things soured between him and the late model, who died Feb. 8 of an accidental overdose, saying their split happened in April or May of last year. That was right before Smith took off, with Stern in tow, for the Bahamas, a move Birkhead says he doesn’t blame her for taking.
“If people are telling you that your baby can be taken from you and the laws are better in the Bahamas than they are in the States, you’re going to shop for what’s better for you,” he says. “I understand in hindsight what she was doing, but I don’t agree with it.
“I have hurt about it, but she’s gone, so where am I going to direct that hurt? I can’t hold that inside. I think she would have come around.”
While neither Birkhead nor OK! would confirm how much was shelled out for the exclusive rights for the glossy spread (before the deal was struck, some reports speculated the photos and interview would easily fetch more than $1 million), the new father did say any such payment would be going directly into a trust fund for Dannielynn.
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