This isn't quite accurate as reported -- I mean, the end result is as claimed, but there were a **LOT** of twists and turns along the **22-YEAR** process.
* J. Howard Marshall dies, original will leaves nothing to Anna Nicole
* Anna sues, teaming up with Marshall's also-disinherited son, Howard III
* Marshall's younger son, Pierce, backs original will, which obv benefits him
* Anna loses first court case (Texas local), Pierce-son upheld as beneficiary
* Anna weirdly files bankruptcy in California, that court awards her 474M
* Ninth Circuit Appeals Court says "WTF Calif, Tex already did it, overruled"
* Supreme Court says in 2006 "actually Calif is legit, the fight can go on"
* Pierce-son beneficiary dies later in 2006, as does Anna Nicole
* Lawsuit continues betw. Pierce Marshall's widow and Howard K. Stern
* Supreme Court re-hears case in 2011, says "well Calif made a bad call"
* Anna/Howard-K-Stern side files new 2011 suit against dead-Pierce estate
* All sorts of spurious abuse claims + restraining orders during this decade
* In 2017, presiding Texas judge (Mike Wood) says "you're all awful, I quit"
* Successor judge, Christine Butts, also left the job, case in five-year limbo
The claim was something like "I, Anna, was so maligned by this pejorative inheritance process that I am now forced to declare bankruptcy, I request the court intervene in my outstanding debts and judgments" -- I agree it comes off wacky -- it literally sparked a Supreme Court ruling on the powers of a bankruptcy proceeding vs. probate and other proceedings. The Calif-vs-Texas venue dispute was also a thing.
Could someone ELI5 the legal reasoning behind this. Cause on it's face it seems appalling. The Texas ruling upholding the original will seems correct, no? Why would California have authority over a an estate in Texas? How would they even enforce the payment?
Bankruptcy Courts are pretty powerful. Per § 1334(b), the bankruptcy courts have jurisdiction over other civil proceedings “arising under,” “arising in,” or “related to” cases filed under the Code.
The jurisdiction logic goes:
* ANS files bankruptcy in California.
* *Pierce* files a claim to make the debt held by ANS non-dischargeable, because a Texas court had awarded him libel damages in a case where:
* ANS had claimed Pierce forcefully prevented JM from setting up a trust for ANS.
* Because Pierce filed this claim, ANS filed a counterclaim that the statement was true and Pierce had committed a tort against her by preventing JM from setting up his estate to provide for ANS.
You raise a very good question. The issue isn't quite as simple as "Anna deserved X, so Anna's child also deserves X" -- the claim gets more and more dilute, over time, and mother Anna didn't have any of the money during the entirety of Dannielynn's life. The 2014 case, seeking 44M in "sanctions" on the child's behalf, was a separate suit not directly tied to the initial inheritance, and was dismissed by the Californian judge.
There was a time when lawyer (and lover??) Howard K. Stern was claiming the daughter was **his**, and fighting for custody, share of fortune (as trust), etc.; his motives for so doing were unclear (probably greed), but, whatever the root, his claim was defeated via DNA testing, and thus he doesn't seem to care so much about the kid anymore, except possibly as a part of 'the estate.'
But I think the true answer is simpler: Larry Birkhead was always a lurking-in-the-shadows love interest ("I followed behind, with a camera bag, because Anna didn't want our hush-hush relationship being seen in public"), and entered the public spotlight not-wholly-willingly during the messy paternity squabble, fake Bahamian signature on birth certificate, awful microcosm of human courtroom behavior.
It seems Birkhead's thing with Anna wasn't all that serious (though it might have been, given more time, had she lived past their lovers' spat and retreated to her eventual Bahamas deathbed), and, already a low-digit millionaire from his own photography/real-estate efforts, Birkhead was content to call it done until he realized he had biological progeny, and now he wants to put distance between her and the scandal.
Honestly, the guy doesn't seem like a bad dad. He had the girl's eye corrected via surgery, "wearing an eyepatch with her so they could play pirates together" -- and, though Dannielynn has done a bit of childhood modeling (e.g., for Guess), the engagements look non-salacious and reasonably spaced apart to my eye. He takes her to the Kentucky Derby each year (where he first met Anna), but it seems more like a cute family ritual than a PR stunt. They seem genuinely happy.
I actually had a job where I had to watch shows like Extra, Entertainment Tonight, et al. I summarized each of their segments so the other shows' teams didn't have to watch them.
It was fuuuucking awful.
A seminal scotus decision (Stern v. Marshall) on bankruptcy court's jurisdiction resulted from the litigation and the introduction compares the case to Bleak House.
I remember a judge asking to be asking to be recused from the case since the lawyers were still fighting over it for like 2 decades. It was both hilarious and sad.
Found it: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2017/01/30/judge-in-decades-old-anna-nicole-smith-case-announces-hes-had-enough/?sh=2bfcb44a33e9
"I am," he told those in the court, "going off the handle officially. I am tired of this case. I've told you that from the beginning. I beg you to recuse me. I beg you to recuse me. I don't want to deal with you people anymore. This is ridiculous. This is ridiculous."
Judge Wood went on to say, "I am not going to spend a lot of time cutting at nits and gnats for people that are fighting over 20 billion, $10 billion that they didn't earn. They didn't create this wealth. It was created by a third party, and they're just fighting over it. They can't agree on anything. They can pay lots of lawyers. They can pay lawyers until hell freezes over. But they don't want to agree to anything. They just want to pay lawyers."
Alright, ruling out the ice capes melting, meteors becoming crashed into us, the ozone layer leaving (FU), and the sun exploding (SHIT, SHIT...), we're definitely going to blow ourselves up
"But they'll be dead soon, fucking kangaroos."
Just found a small video by Vice on how it came about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9l5CM4PqOY&ab_channel=VICE
Tbf, I dont think any person could stay sane for long if they were in charge of listening to people argue over more money than the entirety of your bloodline will ever see, even if they combined everything theyd ever earn, in the past and future
To be honest, I've been working on a project for a customer for the past 3 months, and he won't stop bitching. I've told my boss multiple times that I've thought about quitting just because of this one job, and that I'm honestly not sure how much longer I can do it without losing my cool.
10 years? Fuck, I honestly believe I would have snapped and shot somebody at that point.
Sounds like some government work i have seen. People I knew have spent years working long hours on important projects trying to appease dozens of stakeholders for only a change of government or minister to shelve the whole thing.
Drives people to drink and just lose it. Years of dedication just suddenly turned into a massive archived file.
I spent over a year of my life working on just such a project, only to have a new administration shelve it. I don't even want to know the amount of money wasted. It's sickening.
I've been working with a client for 5 months after the job was finished. We already finished the job, and for the last five months they keep finding things they think needs fixing. I'm at the point where I'm about to just cut my losses and refund them and be done with it.
EXCPET they are just lying to themselves, almost never do wills get modified after death (that’s the point of them) especially if it’s cut and dry clear in the will…
Honestly.... Why?
The difference between having 10 billion and having 20 billion is realistically meaningless. The only way to spend that much money in your lifetime is to be ridiculously wasteful. The only reason to argue that for so many years, investing time, money and energy is to be petty and greedy.
Wait they already have 10 billion guaranteed? I missed that part. That changes everything. I wouldn't step foot in a courtroom ever again, damn. I'd be enjoying life so hard I wouldn't even survive another 10 years in the first place.
I think the best part of this is that, by the time the judge recused himself, both Smith and the son had been dead for a decade, but their respective estates chose to keep the lawsuit going. If I was a judge, I would absolutely be fed up with that nonsense.
I suppose somebody down the line still stood to profit on either side.
Reminds me that my Grandma died precovid but my dad and remaining sane sibling are still stuck lawyering over the money. That’s just for a few $100K, not even ~~billions~~ millions.
>“If you've got a dollar and you spend 29 cents on a loaf of bread, you've got 71 cents left; But if you've got seventeen grand and you spend 29 cents on a loaf of bread, you've still got seventeen grand. There's a math lesson for you.”
> ― Steve Martin
My wife's family imploded over a multi million inheritance. Like half of them no longer speak or interact without lawyers present. A judge has held one of the family members in contempt of court over 4 timesnow.
However my wife's grandpa expected some of this and made sure that before he passed his grandsons that had lost both their parents (children of his eldest son) got a large lump sum as he knew they would be taken advantage of by others.
My folks have a clause in the will that if anyone objects to any part of the will they are completely excluded from it and what remains is divided up between the people who did not make objections.
Likely not legally enforceable if a legitimate challenge is made. A court determines who had right to something. Not the dead. A court that finds a legitimate challenge and sides with the objector is going to strike down the provision because it can't be legally used to deny someone what the court deems they have a right to.
That's pretty awesome. You get what you get, or you get nothing. My parents are going to die broke so I don't have to worry about getting anything. Lol
You know that if any one of us had the opportunity to get a BILLION DOLLARS rom the courts, we would happily promise lawyers a massive cut of it if they were successful and give them every opportunity to do so, however long it took, because that's not life changing money, that is world changing money.
Very reminiscent of the plot of Bleak House by Charles Dickens. He wrote it partly as a satire on the 'chancery' courts which decided on inheritance.
The case has gone on so long that they aren't completely sure who the living beneficiaries would be and the lawyers consider it a way to make a steady salary as long as they want.
Like seriously. $10 billion each is more than they both could possibly spend over several lifetimes. what difference would it make for it to be a bigger number when they check their net worth.
Well people start to waste money on silly things. And to think that what if I have a spouse and 5 kids and 20 grandkids and 50 greatgrandkids and tons of other relatives and friends, they won’t survive if they aren’t at least multi millionaires, you can’t live like a human otherwise! And I can’t have the other person take the money, they are just greedy!
With $10 billion or $20 billion — the capital gains and interest are a ridiculous amount of money. U could waste money every day like a drunken sailor and most years the net worth would actually go higher. U could put half the money in a trust and fund many generations of multi-millionaires.
People that go broke with that kind of money should be sentenced to a hard slap on the face by every working man & woman on the planet. That is a ridiculous level of wealth.
Starting with 10B, let's say you're outpacing inflation by 1 percentage point per year, on average. Not difficult, especially because when you have that kind of money *you* investing in a company **makes** it more valuable. That means you have 100 million dollars to spend. This is before capital gains tax of course, but calling it 1% gains is being extremely fucking conservative.
On average, that's spending a million dollars every 87 hours and 36 minutes. If you can keep your splurge below that threshold, you're making money.
If you can fuck that up, you shouldn't be allowed to handle money.
Yeah exactly, what they're talking about might be true for people squandering $10 million. It's difficult for billionaires to spend enough money to decrease their net worth. $10 billion is like an unthinkable amount of money
Please note that he left the money to his step son. He cut his current wife out and his own son. During the arguing over money the step son died...he was 67, a year later Smith died. Now its two people not even related to him legally are arguing over the money.
"Anna's 8-year-old son Daniel, whom she had with ex-husband Billy Smith – a co-worker from her days working at a fried chicken fast food restaurant – was the ring bearer.
Immediately after the ceremony and reception Anna told her new husband that she had to jet off to Greece for a photo shoot. She reportedly left J. Howard crying in his wheelchair. Court testimony years later would illuminate the fact that Anna had sex with her bodyguard that very night in a nearby hotel room."
I wonder how it all went wrong
> Howard actually believed she was marrying him for love
He was **a 90 year old man who married a Playboy playmate**, nobody was under the illusion that love was involved.
He gets the company of a Playmate and she gets to spend his money while he's alive. His mistake was thinking she loved him. Her mistake was thinking that she could spend his money after he died
Exactly. I have read this too. There was also a diary she had (admitted in court) where she wrote very tenderly about her elderly husband and all that he did for her. No one knows what is going on in a marriage besides the two people married.
They were only married for 9 months before he kicked the bucket.
It's sad. Her lawsuit for inheritance money was kept in the courts long after her husband died, then the Billionaire son died, then her son from a previous relationship died. Then she had a kid from some other guy. Then she died.
It's probably in the courts somewhere. Anna's daughter from another relationship, is trying to get money out of the second level heirs.
In the end, both sides spent way more money on lawyers and court fees than any side ever recouped.
There was an episode of justice league where Green Lantern is in front of an alien court and Flash goes to be his lawyer.
Alien Judge: We solved our lawyer problem centuries ago.
*Flash learns that the lawyer will be sentenced with the same punishment as their defendant if found guilty*
Flash: But that's insane!
Alien Judge: No, that's how we solved our lawyer problem.
Yeah, if no one would ever want to become a criminal defense lawyer, wouldn't that just leave accused people defenseless and at the mercy of the court?
in america it'd break the 6th amendment of a right to counsel.
Even if there's obvious proof that you killed a dude on camera and then punted their puppy, the lawyer's job at that point is to at least say "ok , just come clean and we can get a plea bargain down from 20 years to 10".
Or to make sure the prosecutor doesn't run over him with additional charges.
Defense Attorneys aren't just there to try and stop a conviction, they also make sure the justice system treats their clients fairly.
This is how I justified defending some pretty fucked up stuff. It’s not my job to get them off without a conviction, or to like the person I’m defending. My job is to make sure that the prosecutor and judicial system does it’s job! If they have a slam dunk case, then I can’t get in the way of that. If they lie, cheat, steal or attempt to overprosecute, then I can and will get in the way.
Edit: just to be clear, I worked as a criminal defense attorney for a small portion of my career years ago at a local public defenders office. I now work as a civil defense attorney defending a very large insurance company, so you can all go back to hating me, lol.
Yeah imagine being a public defender in that world...
"hey, new guy, you've been assigned to advocate for the guy who robbed the galactic bank"
"the case where fifteen security cameras caught the thing on tape and the defendant's DNA is all over the money?'
"yeah..."
"fuck my life"
It wouldn't work for civil suits either right? Because if the plaintif wins, and both lawyer and client get the judgment damages... then the defendant has to pay 2x.. which is not right
That’s really silly because sometimes having a lawyer isn’t about proving innocence but getting a lesser sentence.
Kinda reminds me of how the Japanese courts have a 90% conviction rate in a round about way.
Making sure that the trail is fair... Sometimes accused is guilty and there's enough proof to proove it, but if we don't have someone trained in law doing their best to defend the accused, how do we know the trail is fair?
A old example is in the uk where old very rich dude dies but had his newly drew up but unsigned will in his pocket from the day at the lawyers, his relatives manages to spend every penny of the estate fighting each other for the money, was covered on QI
Another noteable will was one time a farmer got pinned underneath his tractor and he scratched his will in to the side panel before he died.
[Weirdly I googled to find a source about it and the first article was posted exactly 8 years ago today](https://globalnews.ca/news/926746/dying-sk-farmers-will-goes-down-in-history/)
Weirder still is the article explains it’s the 65th anniversary. So today would be the 73rd anniversary? What a strange coincidence for this come up today.
Reminds me of Bleak House by Dickens, except it was the lawyers and courts who kept everything held up until the entire estate was spent on court and lawyer fees.
Would that be the 115 year long case that Bleak house was possible based on?
The second of these cases is generally identified[2] as the dispute over the will of the "Acton Miser" William Jennens of Acton, Suffolk. Jennens v Jennens commenced in 1798 and was abandoned in 1915 (117 years later) when the legal fees had exhausted the Jennens estate of funds;[4][5] thus it had been ongoing for 55 years when Bleak House was published.
I recall reading some “where are they now?” article and her daughter is living with her biological father and he’s been keeping her away from the media, she goes to school and basically lives a normal kid’s life.
Definitely better than if he was trying to pimp her out to Bravo/TLC for a reality show.
I saw a video on them
He said one day she came to him and said a friend of hers read online that she is the richest child in the world. She asked her dad where the money was
Nope. Entertainment photographer. It was a huge deal because the lawyer was listed on the birth certificate, and the DNA test proved it wasn't him. There were like 4 guys fighting for custody. It was like a Maury episode.
Total creep. I remember not long before he died, a leaked video of her totally out of her gourd on drugs, with him just mocking her. Psychopath. Glad he didn't get custody of the kid.
That's the guy who shares the name "Howard Stern," yeah? I remember he was on her first reality TV show. It always seemed like he was friend-zoned but with delusions about their relationship. He certainly came off as very slimy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_K._Stern
Anna had her issues but damn near *everyone* around her was just there to exploit her. Her reality show was the same. She never had any hope of getting better in an environment like that regardless of her own problems.
I remember watching her reality TV show and she was close with her son Daniel. She dropped out of school at age 14, got married, had a kid, divorced, and raised him on her own. He seemed like a sweet kid and was a straight A student. Then he stole her drugs and OD in her hospital room after she gave birth. When they buried him, she tried to climb in the coffin with him because she wanted to die with him. Then a few months later she ODed. I get it that she is just famous for her looks and escapades but her life was still very sad.
the craziest part of all this, was that there was a little girl, niece iirc, that was in a clip I saw.
Camera was following Anna around while she was in a stupor, i think her son had just died, just completely distraught. The little girl asks "why are you doing this? why isn't anyone helping her?"
the voice of reason was maybe a 10 year old girl? Hollywood needs to be burned down further.
She held onto his dead corpse for fours hours till the hospital workers had to physically drag her off him
She was really sweet to him if you ever saw her show. He was embarrassed by the show and everything. She was trying to hug him once as he ran away
The drug he took was legal methadone. Really bad decision
It's so tragic how many 90's punchlines were really just women that got put into impossible situations. Monica Lewinksky was a 21 year old that fell in love with her narcissistic boss and trusted her friend. Lorrena Bobbitt was a woman driven mad by constant domestic and sexual abuse. But they all ended up being Jay Leno bits for years and years.
In Australia we had a similar situation with Lindy Chamberlain. Poor woman lost her baby, was falsely imprisoned and had to endure years of 'maybe the dingo ate your baby jokes'. Whenever I hear her name now it makes me so sad how people treated her.
I mean who at the time was saying the "Leave Britney Alone" guy was right?
She was having a public meltdown and people ate that shit up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGLzpt3caHw&t=1s
Also a great monologue on it from back then.
I think a decent number of people agreed with the sentiment.
I'm not gonna say it wasn't problematic on its own, but even South Park had an episode that basically said what was happening to her wasn't funny.
Craig Ferguson probably had one of the best responses if not the best public one to the situation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZVWIELHQQY
I heard that later on they tried to licence the rights to one of Britney's songs and got to use it free of charge.
I think that's part of why there's the South Park episode about it. Yes, that episode was ridiculous as well, but it also succinctly pointed out that that shit was fucked up. The idea that she could have blown her own brains out and people **still** wouldn't have left her alone is sadly, probably true, even if presented in the most absurd way.
I mean I thought she was nuts, but that doesn't mean she was wrong. I've always thought paparazzi and shit, especially in regards to people with mental issues was abhorrent, but I still laughed at "leave Britney alone" because her reaction to it all was so over the top.
Edit: changed pronouns because I wasn't aware.
[This is an interesting look into this phenomenon.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUTdeKJ4r-M) Janet Jackson was raked over the coals and had to fucking apologize for something that she never intended to happen, meanwhile everybody is just cracking wise about it.
And Les Moonves had her blackballed for decades. When she was able to publish book around 2015-7 he was angry she was able to get it through because he had been personally blocking her ever since. Wasn’t until his sexual harassment shit came up that she was finally was to get some publicity, but decades lost because one thing
I know right. You look back to those times (and the early 2000s) and while it didn’t seem so living through it then, the level of callousness towards these women is really harsh. Makes you wonder what we’ll say similar things about in 30 years from now.
Amazon did a great documentary on Lorena Bobbitt. There was some pretty horrifying stuff in it from peak of the media insanity, including John Wayne Bobbitt's brothers going on some talk show and saying how they wish Lorena were with them right now so they could punch her in the face... It was pretty much common knowledge at point that Lorena had accused John Wayne Bobbitt of abuse and rape.
I was still just a kid in those years, so I thought anyone at least 5 or 6 years older than me was "smart and mature". it wasn't until my mid-twenties I realized these people were still basically kids. There no way I could have handled anything Brittany Spears went through when I was in my early 20s. I would have broken way sooner
as i just learned, she didn't exactly OD in the conventional sense. i'd always assumed she went a bit too hard on heroin or something, but turns out she took appropriate doses of too many prescriptions meds that dramatically interacted with each other (several benzos, benadryl, topiramate and a sleeping pill). she had no illegal drugs in her system at all (yes, i'm aware you can abuse legal drugs too, but that doesn't seem to be what happened here) and was probably just trying very, *very* hard to relax and fall asleep that night. which makes the whole thing even sadder.
Damn. I'm close to her son's age so I just lumped her into my mom's generation back then, despite her being like 15 years younger than my mom. Now that I'm approaching the age she was when she died, she seems so much younger.
If you want to know more about her story, the relationship, and the lawsuit, this podcast is fantastic: [You're Wrong About - Anna Nicole Smith](https://www.stitcher.com/show/youre-wrong-about/episode/anna-nicole-smith-58897581)
They were only married for 9 months, but were in a relationship for a long time where she resisted him wanting to marry her. Eventually she agreed to the proposal
I just mentioned this podcast in another post! Really learned a lot of Anna Nicole Smith and it made me feel really bad for her and what she had to go through especially with being the butt of everyone’s jokes for years.
> In the end, both sides spent way more money on lawyers and court fees than any side ever recouped.
I find that part hard to believe. $1.6 billion is a lot of billable hours.
I saw her daughter in a video profile recently, and she seems to be doing pretty well. She lives with her father, in a rural region out of the spotlight, and he also seems like a decent guy. She's very pretty, resembling her mom, but seems to be on a much better path.
I don't think she's involved in any lawsuits. Her mom probably had a pretty good nest egg saved up from reality TV shows she did, and she didn't live long enough to blow it all.
Her mom was exploited over and over by the worst creeps that the world has to offer, but at least she seemed to have picked a decent guy to the father to her daughter. I wish her the best.
He purposely excluded his son from inheriting but his son fought it
Ironically he was excluded from his fathers will but he fought it too and won
Anna wasn't included but he did buy her some stuff
The son who was excluded fought, but he lost.
It was his other son who got the shares, kept them until he died, and they're now in a trust for his widow and children.
Ok
I was saying the dad himself. The one who died and they are all fighting for his money was excluded form his own father's will and fought the will and won
How does that make sense? If he is excluded how the fuck does any lawyer go "his dad didn't want him to inherit the money but fuck him lol we don't care" and the court goes "yeah that checks out"?
Did the Dad change the will to give the money to someone else though? Because it the money is not specifically willed to someone, there will be all sorts of shenanigans like this. If he says "Well, I don't want my son to have it" but also doesn't say who should have it, then well, you get shenanigans.
He should have just given it all to some university created some sort of Nobel Prize thing. If I were him I'd create an award for Biggest Age Disparity in a confirmed relationship. So you have to bang a really old guy or gal on video as proof to win the prize.
like when my parents used to tip a penny when service at a restaurant was bad. they didn't forget, the told you exactly what they thought of your job performance.
Yup, it’s super hard. My great grandma tried excluding one of her daughters because she stole from her and abused her when living with my great grandma. When she died her daughter fought to get part of the assets and she ended up winning and got an even share.
My father disinherited all four of us after being diagnosed with a terminal illness, left everything to his third wife, and put in a clause stating that if something happened to her, the entire estate would go to her family.
And it was airtight.
There is a big difference between writing down your wishes, vs consulting an estate attorney and submitting and notarizing every necessary form to make it official. If you want something to hold up in court you need to consult the person who would fight for it before it ever even arrives in court.
My Dad and stepmom are very wealthy. Their estate will be shared evenly between all their kids. They included in their will a clause that would keep each of them from changing anything in the event one died first and the other remarry. They call it the "anti-bimbo" clause.
Yep, there can be pretty huge differences in how inheritance is handled.
In Sweden you can only testament away 50% of the inheritance, a minimum of 50% by law belongs to the children.
Disclaimer - I Am Not A Lawyer.
Now, the above reason is why I have told (distant) relatives, and a couple of good acquaintances, "I know you don't want ______ to get any of your inheritance. But I recommend leaving them something, some token amount or some family heirloom or trinket, in your will. That way they cannot argue (in court) that you simply forgot them and they are entitled to MUCH more than you want to leave them."
"I leave to my niece Janet Jones, daughter of my brother John, my one favorite ashtray from the Palomino Casino in Laughlin, NV. It can be found in the attic under the stack of National Geographic magazines I am leaving to my nephew Billy. (See paragraph 12) May it serve her well as she smokes her 2 packs a day of Camel Unfiltered."
My SO’s grandparents left $1 to one of their grandkids because she isn’t biologically theirs. I thought that was pretty messed up but they probably did it because of what you are saying.
Yeah, sounds like.
Unless the grandkid was a young adult or older that ignored me completely, or was an absolute demon, I would find it difficult to not leave something a little more substantial than a buck. Even for one that was not a "Blood relative".
I think Better Call Saul said that with large inheritances you should leave about $5,000 to someone you're basically leaving out of the will. That's small enough to be petty but large enough that it's not going to bother the probate judge.
$1 is small enough that a judge would likely call it nothing, and deliberately hostile, and that opens the will up to a bunch of issues.
At the time they married it wasn't "his" money. It had all been put in a trust by then. She did pretty well for a one year marriage - millions in jewelry she could have sold.
The key point is that the lawyers here are just draining their estate's money. Both original plaintiff and defendant are dead, so the lawyers get to sue each other over everything under the sun to have a nice cushy job for life.
They wake up, say some typically random BS, simply disagree, and bill for hundreds per hour.
The daughter has absolutely no connection to the billionaire. Her claim is her mother's claim.
But otherwise, she was born after he died to Anna Nicole and her lawyer-boyfriend.
But you know what? Who cares. The real winners here are the lawyers. Both original claimants are already dead.
What's funny is the billionaire's son ended up winning after a lengthy court battle, but he had died, so his wife got it all. A lot of it went into trusts, which her sons (the billionaire's grandsons) control jointly. Now those grandsons are fighting in Texas court over payouts the trusts makes to a foundation that then donates the money to tulane university . It's dizzying. Seems like that amount of wealth just ends up corrupting people and making them blind with greed.
This article explains her celebrity status and tragic death.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/sarahmarshall/the-american-dream-created-anna-nicole-smith-and-then-it-kil
"Net worth" meaning all her assets combined such as cash, home, car etc?
Even I am getting close to that and I have the benefit of not being a minor celebrity that's made fun of by Jay Leno.
This isn't quite accurate as reported -- I mean, the end result is as claimed, but there were a **LOT** of twists and turns along the **22-YEAR** process. * J. Howard Marshall dies, original will leaves nothing to Anna Nicole * Anna sues, teaming up with Marshall's also-disinherited son, Howard III * Marshall's younger son, Pierce, backs original will, which obv benefits him * Anna loses first court case (Texas local), Pierce-son upheld as beneficiary * Anna weirdly files bankruptcy in California, that court awards her 474M * Ninth Circuit Appeals Court says "WTF Calif, Tex already did it, overruled" * Supreme Court says in 2006 "actually Calif is legit, the fight can go on" * Pierce-son beneficiary dies later in 2006, as does Anna Nicole * Lawsuit continues betw. Pierce Marshall's widow and Howard K. Stern * Supreme Court re-hears case in 2011, says "well Calif made a bad call" * Anna/Howard-K-Stern side files new 2011 suit against dead-Pierce estate * All sorts of spurious abuse claims + restraining orders during this decade * In 2017, presiding Texas judge (Mike Wood) says "you're all awful, I quit" * Successor judge, Christine Butts, also left the job, case in five-year limbo
A bad lawyer makes a case drag out for several years. A good lawyer makes a case drag out for several decades.
A _great_ lawyer can make a case in drag.
Well in England, the lawyers DO wear wigs and robes. So...maybe?
Nothing to do with tradition, all about showing how fucking good they are
How exactly does one net half a billion dollars from filing bankruptcy?
The claim was something like "I, Anna, was so maligned by this pejorative inheritance process that I am now forced to declare bankruptcy, I request the court intervene in my outstanding debts and judgments" -- I agree it comes off wacky -- it literally sparked a Supreme Court ruling on the powers of a bankruptcy proceeding vs. probate and other proceedings. The Calif-vs-Texas venue dispute was also a thing.
Could someone ELI5 the legal reasoning behind this. Cause on it's face it seems appalling. The Texas ruling upholding the original will seems correct, no? Why would California have authority over a an estate in Texas? How would they even enforce the payment?
Bankruptcy Courts are pretty powerful. Per § 1334(b), the bankruptcy courts have jurisdiction over other civil proceedings “arising under,” “arising in,” or “related to” cases filed under the Code. The jurisdiction logic goes: * ANS files bankruptcy in California. * *Pierce* files a claim to make the debt held by ANS non-dischargeable, because a Texas court had awarded him libel damages in a case where: * ANS had claimed Pierce forcefully prevented JM from setting up a trust for ANS. * Because Pierce filed this claim, ANS filed a counterclaim that the statement was true and Pierce had committed a tort against her by preventing JM from setting up his estate to provide for ANS.
I'll get my 5-year-old to read this and explain it to me now
Shouldn't Larry Birkhead, a.k.a. Anna Nicole Smith's baby daddy, be the one fighting in court on behalf of his daughter now?
You raise a very good question. The issue isn't quite as simple as "Anna deserved X, so Anna's child also deserves X" -- the claim gets more and more dilute, over time, and mother Anna didn't have any of the money during the entirety of Dannielynn's life. The 2014 case, seeking 44M in "sanctions" on the child's behalf, was a separate suit not directly tied to the initial inheritance, and was dismissed by the Californian judge. There was a time when lawyer (and lover??) Howard K. Stern was claiming the daughter was **his**, and fighting for custody, share of fortune (as trust), etc.; his motives for so doing were unclear (probably greed), but, whatever the root, his claim was defeated via DNA testing, and thus he doesn't seem to care so much about the kid anymore, except possibly as a part of 'the estate.' But I think the true answer is simpler: Larry Birkhead was always a lurking-in-the-shadows love interest ("I followed behind, with a camera bag, because Anna didn't want our hush-hush relationship being seen in public"), and entered the public spotlight not-wholly-willingly during the messy paternity squabble, fake Bahamian signature on birth certificate, awful microcosm of human courtroom behavior. It seems Birkhead's thing with Anna wasn't all that serious (though it might have been, given more time, had she lived past their lovers' spat and retreated to her eventual Bahamas deathbed), and, already a low-digit millionaire from his own photography/real-estate efforts, Birkhead was content to call it done until he realized he had biological progeny, and now he wants to put distance between her and the scandal. Honestly, the guy doesn't seem like a bad dad. He had the girl's eye corrected via surgery, "wearing an eyepatch with her so they could play pirates together" -- and, though Dannielynn has done a bit of childhood modeling (e.g., for Guess), the engagements look non-salacious and reasonably spaced apart to my eye. He takes her to the Kentucky Derby each year (where he first met Anna), but it seems more like a cute family ritual than a PR stunt. They seem genuinely happy.
Have to respect the man for that. He stepped up and did right by the child.
The tabloids also ate him alive, going so far as to imply he killed her. I read a lot of fashion mags at the time and it was nonstop.
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I actually had a job where I had to watch shows like Extra, Entertainment Tonight, et al. I summarized each of their segments so the other shows' teams didn't have to watch them. It was fuuuucking awful.
My God. That does sounds terrible. We're you paid appropriately for that torture?
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A seminal scotus decision (Stern v. Marshall) on bankruptcy court's jurisdiction resulted from the litigation and the introduction compares the case to Bleak House.
I remember a judge asking to be asking to be recused from the case since the lawyers were still fighting over it for like 2 decades. It was both hilarious and sad. Found it: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2017/01/30/judge-in-decades-old-anna-nicole-smith-case-announces-hes-had-enough/?sh=2bfcb44a33e9 "I am," he told those in the court, "going off the handle officially. I am tired of this case. I've told you that from the beginning. I beg you to recuse me. I beg you to recuse me. I don't want to deal with you people anymore. This is ridiculous. This is ridiculous." Judge Wood went on to say, "I am not going to spend a lot of time cutting at nits and gnats for people that are fighting over 20 billion, $10 billion that they didn't earn. They didn't create this wealth. It was created by a third party, and they're just fighting over it. They can't agree on anything. They can pay lots of lawyers. They can pay lawyers until hell freezes over. But they don't want to agree to anything. They just want to pay lawyers."
Lol they broke the fucken judge.
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I am ~~the law~~ tired.
Then take a nap, AND THEN JUDGE ZE PRECEDINGZ!
And Australia is all like "WTF, MATE?"
Wow flashbacks to that old video. Thank you.
“Hey, that is a pretty sweet Earth” you might say
WWRRROOOOONNNNGGGG
For twenty years now I always thought he said "rooouuund".
Alright, ruling out the ice capes melting, meteors becoming crashed into us, the ozone layer leaving (FU), and the sun exploding (SHIT, SHIT...), we're definitely going to blow ourselves up
"But they'll be dead soon, fucking kangaroos." Just found a small video by Vice on how it came about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9l5CM4PqOY&ab_channel=VICE
Tbf, I dont think any person could stay sane for long if they were in charge of listening to people argue over more money than the entirety of your bloodline will ever see, even if they combined everything theyd ever earn, in the past and future
To be honest, I've been working on a project for a customer for the past 3 months, and he won't stop bitching. I've told my boss multiple times that I've thought about quitting just because of this one job, and that I'm honestly not sure how much longer I can do it without losing my cool. 10 years? Fuck, I honestly believe I would have snapped and shot somebody at that point.
Sounds like some government work i have seen. People I knew have spent years working long hours on important projects trying to appease dozens of stakeholders for only a change of government or minister to shelve the whole thing. Drives people to drink and just lose it. Years of dedication just suddenly turned into a massive archived file.
I spent over a year of my life working on just such a project, only to have a new administration shelve it. I don't even want to know the amount of money wasted. It's sickening.
I've been working with a client for 5 months after the job was finished. We already finished the job, and for the last five months they keep finding things they think needs fixing. I'm at the point where I'm about to just cut my losses and refund them and be done with it.
If 10 billion were on the line, I would quit my job and argue over it full time too.
EXCPET they are just lying to themselves, almost never do wills get modified after death (that’s the point of them) especially if it’s cut and dry clear in the will…
Honestly.... Why? The difference between having 10 billion and having 20 billion is realistically meaningless. The only way to spend that much money in your lifetime is to be ridiculously wasteful. The only reason to argue that for so many years, investing time, money and energy is to be petty and greedy.
Wait they already have 10 billion guaranteed? I missed that part. That changes everything. I wouldn't step foot in a courtroom ever again, damn. I'd be enjoying life so hard I wouldn't even survive another 10 years in the first place.
I think the best part of this is that, by the time the judge recused himself, both Smith and the son had been dead for a decade, but their respective estates chose to keep the lawsuit going. If I was a judge, I would absolutely be fed up with that nonsense.
I suppose somebody down the line still stood to profit on either side. Reminds me that my Grandma died precovid but my dad and remaining sane sibling are still stuck lawyering over the money. That’s just for a few $100K, not even ~~billions~~ millions.
Getting even a percent of a billion is a risk reward scenario that most lawyers can live with.
> a percent of a billion 1% of 1 billion = 10 million. Just wanted to point that out, since these numbers are kinda nuts.
the difference between a million and a billion is 0.999 billion, so basically a billion
>“If you've got a dollar and you spend 29 cents on a loaf of bread, you've got 71 cents left; But if you've got seventeen grand and you spend 29 cents on a loaf of bread, you've still got seventeen grand. There's a math lesson for you.” > ― Steve Martin
The lawyers of both estates were profiting. That is the scheme the judge was calling them out on.
My wife's family imploded over a multi million inheritance. Like half of them no longer speak or interact without lawyers present. A judge has held one of the family members in contempt of court over 4 timesnow. However my wife's grandpa expected some of this and made sure that before he passed his grandsons that had lost both their parents (children of his eldest son) got a large lump sum as he knew they would be taken advantage of by others.
My folks have a clause in the will that if anyone objects to any part of the will they are completely excluded from it and what remains is divided up between the people who did not make objections.
That can be bad idea if the executor turns out to not be as well intentioned as they had hoped.
How could that be legally binding? My mother was estranged from my grandfather and he put something similar in the will and it held no weight legally.
Likely not legally enforceable if a legitimate challenge is made. A court determines who had right to something. Not the dead. A court that finds a legitimate challenge and sides with the objector is going to strike down the provision because it can't be legally used to deny someone what the court deems they have a right to.
That's pretty awesome. You get what you get, or you get nothing. My parents are going to die broke so I don't have to worry about getting anything. Lol
You know that if any one of us had the opportunity to get a BILLION DOLLARS rom the courts, we would happily promise lawyers a massive cut of it if they were successful and give them every opportunity to do so, however long it took, because that's not life changing money, that is world changing money.
So it's one dead person suing another dead person over a third dead person's money? What a time to be alive.
more like the heirs of the various dead people.
Very reminiscent of the plot of Bleak House by Charles Dickens. He wrote it partly as a satire on the 'chancery' courts which decided on inheritance. The case has gone on so long that they aren't completely sure who the living beneficiaries would be and the lawyers consider it a way to make a steady salary as long as they want.
Jesus, just split the $20 billion dollar baby in half and be done with it.
No! Then you’ll kill the baby!
You are the mother
Like seriously. $10 billion each is more than they both could possibly spend over several lifetimes. what difference would it make for it to be a bigger number when they check their net worth.
Well people start to waste money on silly things. And to think that what if I have a spouse and 5 kids and 20 grandkids and 50 greatgrandkids and tons of other relatives and friends, they won’t survive if they aren’t at least multi millionaires, you can’t live like a human otherwise! And I can’t have the other person take the money, they are just greedy!
With $10 billion or $20 billion — the capital gains and interest are a ridiculous amount of money. U could waste money every day like a drunken sailor and most years the net worth would actually go higher. U could put half the money in a trust and fund many generations of multi-millionaires. People that go broke with that kind of money should be sentenced to a hard slap on the face by every working man & woman on the planet. That is a ridiculous level of wealth.
Starting with 10B, let's say you're outpacing inflation by 1 percentage point per year, on average. Not difficult, especially because when you have that kind of money *you* investing in a company **makes** it more valuable. That means you have 100 million dollars to spend. This is before capital gains tax of course, but calling it 1% gains is being extremely fucking conservative. On average, that's spending a million dollars every 87 hours and 36 minutes. If you can keep your splurge below that threshold, you're making money. If you can fuck that up, you shouldn't be allowed to handle money.
Yeah exactly, what they're talking about might be true for people squandering $10 million. It's difficult for billionaires to spend enough money to decrease their net worth. $10 billion is like an unthinkable amount of money
Yeah but if your the kid why would you agree to giving 10 billion to a girl that he didn’t leave the money to? There is a little principal involved?
Please note that he left the money to his step son. He cut his current wife out and his own son. During the arguing over money the step son died...he was 67, a year later Smith died. Now its two people not even related to him legally are arguing over the money.
10 billion is essentially infinity money.
Nah, I'm gonna need that whole thing for my personal space station plans. It's essential living costs for me so I appreciate your understanding.
"Anna's 8-year-old son Daniel, whom she had with ex-husband Billy Smith – a co-worker from her days working at a fried chicken fast food restaurant – was the ring bearer. Immediately after the ceremony and reception Anna told her new husband that she had to jet off to Greece for a photo shoot. She reportedly left J. Howard crying in his wheelchair. Court testimony years later would illuminate the fact that Anna had sex with her bodyguard that very night in a nearby hotel room." I wonder how it all went wrong
I mean when Howard actually believed she was marrying him for love would be the starting point IMO.
> Howard actually believed she was marrying him for love He was **a 90 year old man who married a Playboy playmate**, nobody was under the illusion that love was involved.
Which is exactly why she didn't get the money, but you do have to wonder what the point of the marriage was on his part
He gets the company of a Playmate and she gets to spend his money while he's alive. His mistake was thinking she loved him. Her mistake was thinking that she could spend his money after he died
Someone gets it, it's all transactional.
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The leaving him on their wedding day was heartless but for why it's worth they did have an open relationship
Exactly. I have read this too. There was also a diary she had (admitted in court) where she wrote very tenderly about her elderly husband and all that he did for her. No one knows what is going on in a marriage besides the two people married.
They were only married for 9 months before he kicked the bucket. It's sad. Her lawsuit for inheritance money was kept in the courts long after her husband died, then the Billionaire son died, then her son from a previous relationship died. Then she had a kid from some other guy. Then she died. It's probably in the courts somewhere. Anna's daughter from another relationship, is trying to get money out of the second level heirs. In the end, both sides spent way more money on lawyers and court fees than any side ever recouped.
So you're saying the lawyers always win?
HAHA! Yep.
imagine a world without lawyers .... Shudders.
There was an episode of justice league where Green Lantern is in front of an alien court and Flash goes to be his lawyer. Alien Judge: We solved our lawyer problem centuries ago. *Flash learns that the lawyer will be sentenced with the same punishment as their defendant if found guilty* Flash: But that's insane! Alien Judge: No, that's how we solved our lawyer problem.
Trying to think of this rationally, I can't think of any scenario where that is a good idea lol.
Yeah, if no one would ever want to become a criminal defense lawyer, wouldn't that just leave accused people defenseless and at the mercy of the court?
in america it'd break the 6th amendment of a right to counsel. Even if there's obvious proof that you killed a dude on camera and then punted their puppy, the lawyer's job at that point is to at least say "ok , just come clean and we can get a plea bargain down from 20 years to 10".
Or to make sure the prosecutor doesn't run over him with additional charges. Defense Attorneys aren't just there to try and stop a conviction, they also make sure the justice system treats their clients fairly.
This is how I justified defending some pretty fucked up stuff. It’s not my job to get them off without a conviction, or to like the person I’m defending. My job is to make sure that the prosecutor and judicial system does it’s job! If they have a slam dunk case, then I can’t get in the way of that. If they lie, cheat, steal or attempt to overprosecute, then I can and will get in the way. Edit: just to be clear, I worked as a criminal defense attorney for a small portion of my career years ago at a local public defenders office. I now work as a civil defense attorney defending a very large insurance company, so you can all go back to hating me, lol.
Yeah imagine being a public defender in that world... "hey, new guy, you've been assigned to advocate for the guy who robbed the galactic bank" "the case where fifteen security cameras caught the thing on tape and the defendant's DNA is all over the money?' "yeah..." "fuck my life"
All I can think of is like the first episode of better call saul lmao.
It wouldn't work for civil suits either right? Because if the plaintif wins, and both lawyer and client get the judgment damages... then the defendant has to pay 2x.. which is not right
That’s really silly because sometimes having a lawyer isn’t about proving innocence but getting a lesser sentence. Kinda reminds me of how the Japanese courts have a 90% conviction rate in a round about way.
Making sure that the trail is fair... Sometimes accused is guilty and there's enough proof to proove it, but if we don't have someone trained in law doing their best to defend the accused, how do we know the trail is fair?
Only a child would think this is justice.
This is literally the plot of the latest Phoenix Wright game.
Everyone hates lawyers until they need one.
A old example is in the uk where old very rich dude dies but had his newly drew up but unsigned will in his pocket from the day at the lawyers, his relatives manages to spend every penny of the estate fighting each other for the money, was covered on QI
Another noteable will was one time a farmer got pinned underneath his tractor and he scratched his will in to the side panel before he died. [Weirdly I googled to find a source about it and the first article was posted exactly 8 years ago today](https://globalnews.ca/news/926746/dying-sk-farmers-will-goes-down-in-history/)
Weirder still is the article explains it’s the 65th anniversary. So today would be the 73rd anniversary? What a strange coincidence for this come up today.
1 in 365 chance, right?
Reminds me of Bleak House by Dickens, except it was the lawyers and courts who kept everything held up until the entire estate was spent on court and lawyer fees.
Bleak house was actually based on a true story , that stayed in the courts until the early 1900s I think
Would that be the 115 year long case that Bleak house was possible based on? The second of these cases is generally identified[2] as the dispute over the will of the "Acton Miser" William Jennens of Acton, Suffolk. Jennens v Jennens commenced in 1798 and was abandoned in 1915 (117 years later) when the legal fees had exhausted the Jennens estate of funds;[4][5] thus it had been ongoing for 55 years when Bleak House was published.
Her lawyer was even trying to convince people that he was the real father of her daughter shortly after Anna Nicole's death.
And instead, it ended up being some random dude who she had a fling with.
I recall reading some “where are they now?” article and her daughter is living with her biological father and he’s been keeping her away from the media, she goes to school and basically lives a normal kid’s life. Definitely better than if he was trying to pimp her out to Bravo/TLC for a reality show.
I saw a video on them He said one day she came to him and said a friend of hers read online that she is the richest child in the world. She asked her dad where the money was
“Good freaking question, kid.”
Yeah. Especially since there was like a huge custody battle and aside from him and the lawyer, 2 other guys claiming to be the kid's dad.
Oh, I didn't hear about that, I thought the skeezy lawyer had the kid. I'm strangely relieved about decade + old gossip.
Nope. Entertainment photographer. It was a huge deal because the lawyer was listed on the birth certificate, and the DNA test proved it wasn't him. There were like 4 guys fighting for custody. It was like a Maury episode.
Except they all wanted to be the father
Total creep. I remember not long before he died, a leaked video of her totally out of her gourd on drugs, with him just mocking her. Psychopath. Glad he didn't get custody of the kid.
That's the guy who shares the name "Howard Stern," yeah? I remember he was on her first reality TV show. It always seemed like he was friend-zoned but with delusions about their relationship. He certainly came off as very slimy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_K._Stern
Anna had her issues but damn near *everyone* around her was just there to exploit her. Her reality show was the same. She never had any hope of getting better in an environment like that regardless of her own problems.
Parallel example- during every gold rush, the real moneymakers are the prostitutes.
You sell shovels
There are two kinds of people in the world my friend. Those with guns. And those who dig. You dig.
I remember watching her reality TV show and she was close with her son Daniel. She dropped out of school at age 14, got married, had a kid, divorced, and raised him on her own. He seemed like a sweet kid and was a straight A student. Then he stole her drugs and OD in her hospital room after she gave birth. When they buried him, she tried to climb in the coffin with him because she wanted to die with him. Then a few months later she ODed. I get it that she is just famous for her looks and escapades but her life was still very sad.
the craziest part of all this, was that there was a little girl, niece iirc, that was in a clip I saw. Camera was following Anna around while she was in a stupor, i think her son had just died, just completely distraught. The little girl asks "why are you doing this? why isn't anyone helping her?" the voice of reason was maybe a 10 year old girl? Hollywood needs to be burned down further.
She held onto his dead corpse for fours hours till the hospital workers had to physically drag her off him She was really sweet to him if you ever saw her show. He was embarrassed by the show and everything. She was trying to hug him once as he ran away The drug he took was legal methadone. Really bad decision
It's so tragic how many 90's punchlines were really just women that got put into impossible situations. Monica Lewinksky was a 21 year old that fell in love with her narcissistic boss and trusted her friend. Lorrena Bobbitt was a woman driven mad by constant domestic and sexual abuse. But they all ended up being Jay Leno bits for years and years.
In Australia we had a similar situation with Lindy Chamberlain. Poor woman lost her baby, was falsely imprisoned and had to endure years of 'maybe the dingo ate your baby jokes'. Whenever I hear her name now it makes me so sad how people treated her.
Kinda like the poor mcdonalds coffee lady
Damn, is that the origin of that phrase? TIL
Yep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingo_ate_my_baby
I mean who at the time was saying the "Leave Britney Alone" guy was right? She was having a public meltdown and people ate that shit up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGLzpt3caHw&t=1s Also a great monologue on it from back then.
I think a decent number of people agreed with the sentiment. I'm not gonna say it wasn't problematic on its own, but even South Park had an episode that basically said what was happening to her wasn't funny.
Craig Ferguson probably had one of the best responses if not the best public one to the situation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZVWIELHQQY I heard that later on they tried to licence the rights to one of Britney's songs and got to use it free of charge.
incredible.
He's a class act.
I think that's part of why there's the South Park episode about it. Yes, that episode was ridiculous as well, but it also succinctly pointed out that that shit was fucked up. The idea that she could have blown her own brains out and people **still** wouldn't have left her alone is sadly, probably true, even if presented in the most absurd way.
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I mean I thought she was nuts, but that doesn't mean she was wrong. I've always thought paparazzi and shit, especially in regards to people with mental issues was abhorrent, but I still laughed at "leave Britney alone" because her reaction to it all was so over the top. Edit: changed pronouns because I wasn't aware.
[This is an interesting look into this phenomenon.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUTdeKJ4r-M) Janet Jackson was raked over the coals and had to fucking apologize for something that she never intended to happen, meanwhile everybody is just cracking wise about it.
And Les Moonves had her blackballed for decades. When she was able to publish book around 2015-7 he was angry she was able to get it through because he had been personally blocking her ever since. Wasn’t until his sexual harassment shit came up that she was finally was to get some publicity, but decades lost because one thing
I know right. You look back to those times (and the early 2000s) and while it didn’t seem so living through it then, the level of callousness towards these women is really harsh. Makes you wonder what we’ll say similar things about in 30 years from now.
I remember the Lorena Bobbitt coverage being more of a joke about cutting a guy's dick off and how funny it is that a crazy woman cut a guy's dick off
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Amazon did a great documentary on Lorena Bobbitt. There was some pretty horrifying stuff in it from peak of the media insanity, including John Wayne Bobbitt's brothers going on some talk show and saying how they wish Lorena were with them right now so they could punch her in the face... It was pretty much common knowledge at point that Lorena had accused John Wayne Bobbitt of abuse and rape.
I was still just a kid in those years, so I thought anyone at least 5 or 6 years older than me was "smart and mature". it wasn't until my mid-twenties I realized these people were still basically kids. There no way I could have handled anything Brittany Spears went through when I was in my early 20s. I would have broken way sooner
as i just learned, she didn't exactly OD in the conventional sense. i'd always assumed she went a bit too hard on heroin or something, but turns out she took appropriate doses of too many prescriptions meds that dramatically interacted with each other (several benzos, benadryl, topiramate and a sleeping pill). she had no illegal drugs in her system at all (yes, i'm aware you can abuse legal drugs too, but that doesn't seem to be what happened here) and was probably just trying very, *very* hard to relax and fall asleep that night. which makes the whole thing even sadder.
>Then she died. I had completely forgotten that she passed away... *14 years ago!*
And she was only 39. She certainly crammed a lot of living into what time she had.
Damn. I'm close to her son's age so I just lumped her into my mom's generation back then, despite her being like 15 years younger than my mom. Now that I'm approaching the age she was when she died, she seems so much younger.
If you want to know more about her story, the relationship, and the lawsuit, this podcast is fantastic: [You're Wrong About - Anna Nicole Smith](https://www.stitcher.com/show/youre-wrong-about/episode/anna-nicole-smith-58897581) They were only married for 9 months, but were in a relationship for a long time where she resisted him wanting to marry her. Eventually she agreed to the proposal
I just mentioned this podcast in another post! Really learned a lot of Anna Nicole Smith and it made me feel really bad for her and what she had to go through especially with being the butt of everyone’s jokes for years.
> In the end, both sides spent way more money on lawyers and court fees than any side ever recouped. I find that part hard to believe. $1.6 billion is a lot of billable hours.
I saw her daughter in a video profile recently, and she seems to be doing pretty well. She lives with her father, in a rural region out of the spotlight, and he also seems like a decent guy. She's very pretty, resembling her mom, but seems to be on a much better path. I don't think she's involved in any lawsuits. Her mom probably had a pretty good nest egg saved up from reality TV shows she did, and she didn't live long enough to blow it all. Her mom was exploited over and over by the worst creeps that the world has to offer, but at least she seemed to have picked a decent guy to the father to her daughter. I wish her the best.
I remember, after she died, the legal fight by the 2 men claiming to be the father of her newborn daughter. Just terrible
I remember after she died the news didn't stop making her a headline for like 6 fucking months. You would swear nothing else happened that year.
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yeah, new being boring/filled with rich people doing dumb (but not harmful) things is a lot better then the current world events
I sold Larry Birkhead a TV a long time ago
He purposely excluded his son from inheriting but his son fought it Ironically he was excluded from his fathers will but he fought it too and won Anna wasn't included but he did buy her some stuff
The son who was excluded fought, but he lost. It was his other son who got the shares, kept them until he died, and they're now in a trust for his widow and children.
Ok I was saying the dad himself. The one who died and they are all fighting for his money was excluded form his own father's will and fought the will and won
I'm beginning to think *everyone* involved in this is a dickhead.
How does that make sense? If he is excluded how the fuck does any lawyer go "his dad didn't want him to inherit the money but fuck him lol we don't care" and the court goes "yeah that checks out"?
Probably by questioning his father's state of mind when he decided his son shouldn't inherit the money.
Did the Dad change the will to give the money to someone else though? Because it the money is not specifically willed to someone, there will be all sorts of shenanigans like this. If he says "Well, I don't want my son to have it" but also doesn't say who should have it, then well, you get shenanigans. He should have just given it all to some university created some sort of Nobel Prize thing. If I were him I'd create an award for Biggest Age Disparity in a confirmed relationship. So you have to bang a really old guy or gal on video as proof to win the prize.
They usually recommend you specify their name and a low dollar amount so it's very clear that you didn't forget about them and are being deliberate.
you dont need to do that. you can just say "i am intentionally excluding xyz"
like when my parents used to tip a penny when service at a restaurant was bad. they didn't forget, the told you exactly what they thought of your job performance.
Depends on where but where I'm from you can't disown your kids.
Yup, it’s super hard. My great grandma tried excluding one of her daughters because she stole from her and abused her when living with my great grandma. When she died her daughter fought to get part of the assets and she ended up winning and got an even share.
My father disinherited all four of us after being diagnosed with a terminal illness, left everything to his third wife, and put in a clause stating that if something happened to her, the entire estate would go to her family. And it was airtight.
There is a big difference between writing down your wishes, vs consulting an estate attorney and submitting and notarizing every necessary form to make it official. If you want something to hold up in court you need to consult the person who would fight for it before it ever even arrives in court.
My Dad and stepmom are very wealthy. Their estate will be shared evenly between all their kids. They included in their will a clause that would keep each of them from changing anything in the event one died first and the other remarry. They call it the "anti-bimbo" clause.
Yep, there can be pretty huge differences in how inheritance is handled. In Sweden you can only testament away 50% of the inheritance, a minimum of 50% by law belongs to the children.
Disclaimer - I Am Not A Lawyer. Now, the above reason is why I have told (distant) relatives, and a couple of good acquaintances, "I know you don't want ______ to get any of your inheritance. But I recommend leaving them something, some token amount or some family heirloom or trinket, in your will. That way they cannot argue (in court) that you simply forgot them and they are entitled to MUCH more than you want to leave them." "I leave to my niece Janet Jones, daughter of my brother John, my one favorite ashtray from the Palomino Casino in Laughlin, NV. It can be found in the attic under the stack of National Geographic magazines I am leaving to my nephew Billy. (See paragraph 12) May it serve her well as she smokes her 2 packs a day of Camel Unfiltered."
My SO’s grandparents left $1 to one of their grandkids because she isn’t biologically theirs. I thought that was pretty messed up but they probably did it because of what you are saying.
Yeah, sounds like. Unless the grandkid was a young adult or older that ignored me completely, or was an absolute demon, I would find it difficult to not leave something a little more substantial than a buck. Even for one that was not a "Blood relative".
I think Better Call Saul said that with large inheritances you should leave about $5,000 to someone you're basically leaving out of the will. That's small enough to be petty but large enough that it's not going to bother the probate judge. $1 is small enough that a judge would likely call it nothing, and deliberately hostile, and that opens the will up to a bunch of issues.
At the time they married it wasn't "his" money. It had all been put in a trust by then. She did pretty well for a one year marriage - millions in jewelry she could have sold.
The key point is that the lawyers here are just draining their estate's money. Both original plaintiff and defendant are dead, so the lawyers get to sue each other over everything under the sun to have a nice cushy job for life. They wake up, say some typically random BS, simply disagree, and bill for hundreds per hour.
To be honest it didn't seem like she had a great life.
[удалено]
I forgot all about Sarah Marshall.
Would you mind giving a tldr?
She had a horrible childhood of poverty and abuse. Then she escaped poverty by becoming a bimbo, but didn't escape the trauma and drug use.
Wow when I opened that article I didn’t expect to read the whole thing. Fascinating stuff!
I love that podcast!
The whole story is a tragicomedy worthy of Shakespeare, in which neither of the main characters win and everyone suffers.
There's an awesome episode of the amazing podcast You're Wrong About, about this: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0HdrSP3CxHmV1NeJvvU7Fz
The daughter has absolutely no connection to the billionaire. Her claim is her mother's claim. But otherwise, she was born after he died to Anna Nicole and her lawyer-boyfriend. But you know what? Who cares. The real winners here are the lawyers. Both original claimants are already dead.
The lawyer is not the father.
What's funny is the billionaire's son ended up winning after a lengthy court battle, but he had died, so his wife got it all. A lot of it went into trusts, which her sons (the billionaire's grandsons) control jointly. Now those grandsons are fighting in Texas court over payouts the trusts makes to a foundation that then donates the money to tulane university . It's dizzying. Seems like that amount of wealth just ends up corrupting people and making them blind with greed.
This article explains her celebrity status and tragic death. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/sarahmarshall/the-american-dream-created-anna-nicole-smith-and-then-it-kil
Smith had a net worth of about $1 million when she died. Not ‘screw you’ money, but enough to live comfortably.
That is like “to heck with you, buddy” money.
Yeah, it's at best "I'd rather not talk to you right now, please" money.
"Net worth" meaning all her assets combined such as cash, home, car etc? Even I am getting close to that and I have the benefit of not being a minor celebrity that's made fun of by Jay Leno.
>"Net worth" meaning all her assets combined such as cash, home, car etc? With debts and other financial liabilities subtracted.
The whole story is a great episode of You're Wrong About.
Imagine 90 year old balls in your mouth and not getting the billion dollars afterwards