ANNA NICOLE SMITH: Doc describes sad descent into ‘selfish monster’

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Playboy model, gold miner and reality TV star Anna Nicole Smith was a “manipulative, selfish monster,” a new documentary reveals.

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The buxom beauty died on February 8, 2007. She was just 39 years old.

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Cause of death: accidental drug overdose.

Now a new Netflix documentary, Anna Nicole Smith: You don’t know meHe unveils the curtain on the former stripper’s troubled and controversial life.

Smith had made a name for himself in the tabloids — and as a cautionary tale on the quest for fame.

Among those interviewed was her best friend, Missy, who Smith met when they were both undressing at a jiggle store in Houston. The pair soon began a torrid, clandestine affair.

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“I was her first female lover,” Missy said. “I was really in love with her.”

She added, “She had an insatiable appetite for sex.”

Smith’s pursuit of fame and fortune transformed the naïve, small-town Texan into a drug-addicted “selfish” witch with no “compassion,” Missy said.

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Smith was born Vickie Lynn Hogan in the small town of Mexia, Texas, about halfway between Dallas and Houston, with a population of 7,000. Her mother was a police officer.

She described her childhood as a time of abuse, despair and deprivation. Friends say the narrative wasn’t remotely accurate, particularly the claims of “beatings, floggings and rapes.”

Her late mother, Virgie, said: “She loved to be the center of attention. We went to the mall and behind us were 50 men and boys.”

Smith was married to Billy Wayne Smith, 16, when she was 17. That didn’t last long and she fled after the couple’s son Daniel was born in 1986.

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The next stop was a Houston strip joint awash with oil money where dancers could make a decent bank with the hundreds of dollars they put in their thongs.

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“This beautiful girl walks in and one of the girls said, ‘God, she looks good, but they’re going to eat her alive,'” said her former lover, Missy. “Anna was very naive. They hired her, but she couldn’t dance. She was like an emu trying to fly.”

Missy added, “Nobody had to give her any pointers on how to attract a man. She knew what she was doing. Right away she made a lot of money.

“She told me she was going to be a famous model. She was convinced that the only thing holding her back was her breasts.”

So Smith paid for a breast correction.

One person who caught her eye at the strip joint was a billionaire oil tycoon named J. Howard Marshall. He was 89; Smith was 24. They married in 1994.

But first, the well-heeled hunk showered the busty blonde with lavish gifts, including a six-bedroom mansion, stables, a basketball court, pool and guest house. He wanted to marry her, but she wouldn’t bite until she made a name for herself.

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Then she was discovered by playboy and became the cover girl, “a dream come true,” she said. That opened doors: she earned money with a performance at Guess Jeans and was called the next Claudia Schiffer.

In 1994 she changed her name to Anna Nicole and landed her first film role The Hudsucker Proxy. Naked Gun 331⁄3 followed in the same year.

The only downer was increasing reliance on prescription drugs to combat the pain of her breast surgery.

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Smith first overdosed in 1993.

“She comes to the shoots looking haggard. She is no longer grateful to Mr. Marshall. She treats him like an ATM,” says Missy in the documentary.

“You watch the person you love turn into a selfish monster, a full-fledged drug addict. My friend who loved me was gone. There was no compassion. So I stopped. We were done.”

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And after just 13 months of marriage, Marshall died at the age of 90. Smith, then 28, claimed she was promised half of his $1.6 billion fortune.

What ensued was a legal battle with Marshall’s son, Pierce, who complained she wasted $16 million of his father’s money.

Smith quipped, “It’s very expensive to be me.”

And a huge court bill when she lost her case didn’t help matters. Now broke, Smith got a reality TV show for E!, The Anna Nicole Smith Show.

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The end was on the horizon and Smith knew it, said her former lover Missy, adding that the small-town girl is now very alone.

In 2005, she became pregnant, sparking a bizarre paternity dispute between four men. There was former bodyguard and Zsa Zsa Gabor’s husband, Frederic Prinz von Anhalt, who even put his hat in the ring.

Photographer Larry Birkhead turned out to be the father of Dannielynn, now 16, and was awarded custody.

Her son Daniel, 20, fell into his own addiction hell. He visited Smith in the hospital where she was resting after giving birth – and died of an overdose shortly after before leaving the building.

Five months later, Smith died with her son. An autopsy revealed it was an overdose.

Missy said, “She kept telling me she was going to die young. I should have believed it.”

bhunter@postmedia.com

@HunterTOSun