Howard K. Stern says he took pictures of Daniel’s body ‘for Anna’
Emma Johnson
Updated on March 11, 2026
The inquest into the death of Anna Nicole Smith’s son Daniel is going on in the Bahamas. It’s hard to tell who is the bigger surviving famewhore: Larry Birkhead or Howard K. Stern. Both hangers-on have been called to testify in the investigation and give two very different accounts of Daniel. Larry Birkhead claims that Daniel often dipped into his mother’s formidable stash of prescription drugs, and that Anna herself gave Daniel the drug ecstasy on occasion. Stern, however, says that Daniel was “not that kind of kid.” When Stern was grilled about his motives for taking photographs of Daniel’s dead body, he explained that he wasn’t looking to make money off the photos, but instead took them for Anna’s sake, because she was not able to accept that her son was really gone.
Larry Birkhead said he knew Daniel Smith was sneaking his mom’s methadone and that Anna Nicole Smith gave him Ecstasy to take at home.
Meanwhile, Howard K. Stern was saying, “Huh?”…
“I didn’t believe Daniel died of a drug overdose at all,” Stern said. “Even after the toxicology report came back, I thought that was some kind of setup or something. He wasn’t that kind of kid.”
Smith was found to have died of a toxic combination of methadone, antidepressants and sleeping pills. His passing was originally deemed “suspicious” by the coroner who performed his autopsy. The inquest, which finally got under way in November after a year of postponements, was held to formally determine what killed Daniel and whether any criminal charges should be filed.
The magistrate will likely hand the case over to the seven-member jury on Thursday…
“Daniel said to me, ‘I don’t know why I’m so tired,’ ” Stern testified. “I didn’t think anything of it. I wish I had.”
Stern copped to taking a picture of Daniel’s body after he died, but adamantly denied his intention was to profit from the morbid shot, as the son-in-law of one of Smith’s exes testified earlier.
Smith, who was beside herself with grief and was having trouble accepting Daniel was really dead, requested he take the picture, Stern said. “I did that for her, and I would do it again.”
I think this inquest is a giant waste of time. Nobody in this case is going to tell the truth, and the one person who really wanted to know what happened to Daniel– his mother– is dead. As for all the new details about Anna and her son’s drug use, it’s sad, but at this point, it’s nobody’s business. They’re both dead; and nothing is going to be gained by further dragging them through the mud. It just seems like more of an excuse for Larry Birkhead and Howard Stern to be on camera.
Note by Celebitchy: I think there was some funny business in Daniel’s death and would like to see Howard K Stern answer some tough questions about it. It seems suspicious to me that Birkhead is saying Daniel pilfered Anna’s drugs while Stern is saying the opposite, like they planned it together to make it seem believable. The coroner found that Daniel injested so much methadone that he must have be trying to kill himself. Why would he do that when his baby sister was just born? It doesn’t make sense.
Howard K Stern and Larry Birkhead are shown below on April 10, 2007 after a paternity hearing that announced that Birkhead was Dannielynn’s father.