It's official! Anna's
in the family way
Anna Nicole Smith (with lawyer Howard K. Stern)
Anna Nicole Smith has finally confirmed she's pregnant.
We were the first to tell you on May 3 that the former Playmate might be with child. On Monday, her lawyer, Howard K. Stern, was still denying it. But after the baby's father, Larry Birkhead, came clean to us yesterday, Smith posted a video clip on
www.annanicole.com in which - while floating on a raft in a pool - she acknowledged she's expecting.
Then why the earlier secrecy? Lawyer Stern - who ­successfully argued before the Supreme Court that she has the right to pursue the $1.6 billion estate of her late oilman husband J. Howard Marshall - may be to blame.
"He's in love with her," a friend of Smith's claims. "He is jealous that she is pregnant by another man." Birkhead claims Stern has been bullying him to keep his mouth shut.
"I was told by Howard K. Stern to deny the pregnancy," Birkhead told us from his home state of South Carolina. "But I'm not denying it anymore for legal, moral and ethical reasons. I'm not denying she's pregnant, and I'm not denying I'm the father." Birkhead, a freelance photographer, has 1.6 billion reasons to father a child with Smith, 38, a TrimSpa spokeswoman who also has a 20-year-old son.
"I would never have a child as part of a financial arrangement," Birkhead scoffed. "When I do have a child, I will be a very large part of that child's life. "There are a lot of jealous people out there. People who say other people are just looking for someone's money," the nondenial pop went on.
Execs at Trimspa, the diet program the ballooning Smith hypes, were quick to say they "couldn't be happier," adding, "we'll certainly be here to help her lose all of the weight after she gives birth."