Anna Nicole Smith, lawyer exchange vows
Anna Nicole Smith Marries Her lawyer Howard K. Stern
NASSAU, Bahamas - Reality TV star Anna Nicole Smith exchanged vows with boyfriend Howard K. Stern on a boat near Nassau, but there was no formal marriage and the ceremony is "not legally binding," her attorney Michael Scott said Friday.
Scott said the exchange of vows happened aboard a catamaran Thursday - 18 days after Smith's 20-year-old son, Daniel, died as he was visiting her in a Nassau hospital, where she had given birth to a baby girl.
Stern says he is the father of the baby. The couple "exchanged vows before God" but did not obtain a marriage license, Scott told The Associated Press.
"It was not a formal, legal arrangement," Scott said.
The 38-year-old former Playboy playmate has been mourning the death of her son. Three days earlier, her daughter was born at the same hospital where he died.
Cyril Wecht, a forensic pathologist hired by Smith, said her son died from a combination of two antidepressants and methadone. A Nassau funeral home has been holding the remains while awaiting instructions on burial arrangements.
Anna Nicole Smith has been married twice.
She married Bill Smith in 1985, giving birth to Daniel Smith before divorcing two years later.
She wed Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II in 1994, when she was 26 and he was 89. He died the following year. She has since been involved in legal disputes over the estate.
Authorities in the Bahamas were awaiting their own toxicology results and a police report on Daniel Smith's death to determine whether a jury inquest is necessary.
