Anne Nicole Smith’s Life As A Playboy Model To Be Revealed On Netflix
Anna Nicole Smith's secrets are about to be uncovered!
This article is more than 2 years old
Netflix has announced plans for a new documentary on the life of Anna Nicole Smith. The feature will focus on what the logline of the film describes as “never before seen footage.” The Playboy model and actress was a major celebrity media figure in the 1990s, and died in 2007 at the age of 39. Netflix’s production is as of yet unnamed and does not have a release date. It is, however, very in line with the current reevaluation of many popular female figures of the 1990s. Numerous documentaries have been produced in the last several years about Britney Spears and her legal battles. Similarly, a number of films about the tumultuous 90s period of Janet Jackson have recently been released or are in production.
Some of these documentaries have been produced by Netflix already. In 2021, the streaming behemoth released Britney vs. Spears. It was directed by Erin Lee Carr and focused on the pop star’s controversial conversatorship, which formally ended in November of that year. That particular feature was critically derided, and made comparatively little impact. Of course, it had to compete with Hulu’s Controlling Britney Spears and the New York Times’ Framing Britney Spears for pop culture attention. For her part, Janet Jackson was the subject of Hulu’s Malfunction: The Dressing Down of Janet Jackson. She did not participate in that particular project, most likely in favor of her two part special JANET premiering on Lifetime and A&E later this month. All of this is to say, the moment is clearly white hot for documentaries about stars of the 1990s. It is no surprise that Netflix would come for Anna Nicole Smith.
The Texas-born Anna Nicole Smith captured the attention of America, first as a Playboy Model and model for Guess Jeans. Her marriage to oil mogul J. Howard Marshall II created a firestorm of tabloid headlines, and she became a celebrity in her own right. Most of that was due to the 63 year age difference between the two. But Smith undeniably was a charismatic figure who eventually had her own reality show in the early 2000s, The Anna Nicole Show. J. Howard Marshall II died a year into their marriage. Smith’s subsequent legal battle with Marshall’s family for control of his estate (estimated at $1.6 billion) added to the fervent public interest in the model. Smith sadly passed away in 2007 of what was ruled an accidental drug overdose.
Netflix remains one of the most powerful streaming services in the world. It has had some of its greatest successes recently with original film productions (as well as some notable failures). But it has also frequently run into legal conflicts, particularly with its documentary features. The Tiger King true crime documentary series seized public imagination in 2020. But by its second season, was being sued by individuals featured in it. In her own lifetime, Anna Nicole Smith was always a controversial figure. It is without a doubt that her upcoming unnamed documentary will only continue that.
