This time media overkill and sudden death have come together to create a perfect storm, a storybook ending to public fascination: The end of one woman's lifelong struggle with dieting and a never-ending media chase all in the same scene. It is almost safe to go back to the news.
I have to admit that I first heard of Anna Nicole Smith’s death on NPR while driving home on Thursday. She dropped dead at a hotel in Florida where she had been staying since Monday. Did I hear wrong?
Talk About Coincidence
I had planned to write an article about not wanting to ever see another Extra, Entertainment Tonight, or late night show featuring her, her son, her lawyer, her newborn baby, her paternity test, her lawsuit, or her ill-fated life. I was not, however, prepared to take a media break just to avoid it.
I was tuned in when the story first broke, that she died - go figure. I thought maybe she died of a broken heart after losing her son and her privacy, but perhaps she wanted to lose her privacy. It did not end there.
I could understand reporting her saga with her son and baby, and lawyer and lawsuit (not really), but a story every day? She told Larry King (the king of the grist mill) there was a “dark cloud” over her and that something not-so-good happened to her sans end. Then she dies suddenly at the age of 39! Are we too surprised to be shocked?
She fancied herself cast in the role of a modern-day Marilyn Monroe. Did she want to live and die like her, too? Besides being from Texas, posing for playboy, and marrying a rich old man, what had Anna done? Exactly. Another blonde bites the media dust.
Who will they chase after now? What new blonde will fill the media black hole created by her sudden death? How many months will they rehash this story? Will it push out stories of Hillary, Barack, and Tomkat? Will we know more about Anna's finances than we know about the billions lost, stolen, or burned in Iraq? Will this trump the astronaut-lust triangle? Will her funeral be televised?
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Article comments
1 - Dawn
I won't be going out and buying TrimSpa anytime soon, that's for sure.
Interesting article Heloise!
2 - Douglas Mays
TrimSpa lawyers were probably there before the ambulance.
What essential body needs were sucked out of her by TrimSpa? For example, I have to take a schedule of meds (car accident years ago) and must balance my system with vitamins to replace what the meds are sucking out of me.
The results of autopsy could show...
best,
DM
3 - Heloise
I don't know. But my students thought that she sounded out of it at each interview that they heard and watched.
It may be that she was also abusing prescription drugs. But good point-will TrimSpa lawyers show up at the autopsy?
We should know by tomorrow what killed her. SHe probably died of heart failure, but what led to it will be determined. My guess is pills and booze.
Heloise
4 - Marcia L. Neil
Trimspa lawsuit reported as scheduled at www.tabloidcolumn.com and suddenly she's reported there dead, too. Perhaps the 'widow' role is a cause as misused in labor pool ventures. Smith males die frequently in boat-sank drownings, and suddenly she's in FL? You can blame drugs, but easy-money assembly-line ventures can be at fault, perhaps themselves in the future 'SWAT-worthy'.
5 - Douglas Mays
Blame drugs, blame TrimSpa. In the overall picture they all played a part. 'All' is a term I am using broadly as it applies to situations beyond the 'drugs'.
The girl was beaten down, weak. She didn't have the strength to fight anymore. Daniel's death I'm sure was the issue that was the final blow. The attack of the legal world really took it out of her. Her immune system was really challenged.
A combination of everything brought her down.
prayers,
DM
6 - Heloise
Yes, it was a cascade of things that brought her down. And guess what the people around her pushed her into hating her own mother! She was estranged from her mother. She found love with the photographer but her lawyer, Stern, broke that up.
She thought she would use Stern to keep her baby by the other guy, her love, but the tables were turned on her and now she and her son are dead.
Her mother warned her about the company she was keeping. But she chose drugs and Stern over eveyone else.
Heloise