Anna Nicole Smith was found unresponsive in her hotel room on February 8th, 2007.

By Grace Henry

Published: Tuesday, 16 May 2023 at 12:00 am


Netflix is giving viewers an insight into the life of model and actress Anna Nicole Smith in its brand new film, Anna Nicole: You Don’t Know Me.

From Smith’s rise to fame after appearing as the centre fold for Playboy Magazine in 1992 and her family life (including the death of her son Daniel and her relationship with her lawyer Howard K Stern) to her tragic passing in 2007, the one off film plans to “reveals new insights into the story of the quintessential blonde bombshell hardly anyone really knew”.

Smith was found unresponsive in her hotel room in Hollywood on February 8th, 2007, but what exactly happened to her?

As Anna Nicole Smith: You Don’t Know Me comes to Netflix, read on for everything you need to know about the model, including the cause of her death.

How did Anna Nicole Smith die?

On February 8th, 2007, Anna Nicole Smith, real name Vickie Lynn Marshall, was found in her hotel room at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida.

She was unresponsive at the time and the wife of her bodyguard, who was an emergency nurse, attempted to resuscitate her by performing CPR on Smith for 15 minutes. Smith’s bodyguard was also a trained paramedic, and he is then said to have taken over until paramedics arrived at 2:10pm.

Smith was taken to Memorial Regional Hospital, where she was sadly later pronounced dead on arrival that same afternoon.

An investigation into Smith’s death, led by Broward County Medical Examiner and forensic pathologist Joshua Perper along with Seminole police and several independent scientists, concluded that the model and actress died of “combined drug intoxication”.

It was said that a sleeping medication called chloral hydrate was present in her system, and deemed the “major component” of her intoxication. No illegal drugs were found.

An official copy of Smith’s autopsy report was publicly released on March 26th 2007, and can be found online.

Anna Nicole Smith: You Don’t Know Me is available to stream on Netflix. Sign up for Netflix from £4.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.

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