All bets are off — Dannielynn Birkhead wins greatest have a look at the 2025 Kentucky Derby.
The 18-year-old donned a really particular costume for the festivities, carrying the identical robe her mother, the late Anna Nicole Smith, wore in 2004.
“Kicking of @kentuckyderby weekend with Dannielynn,” her dad, Larry Birkhead, captioned his Friday Instagram publish. “First up, The Barnstable-Brown Gala. Dannielynn is wearing Anna Nicole’s dress that she wore 21 years ago to this same event. Life full circle. She said she chose the dress because it was her Mom’s and ‘super cool.’”
“Next up the Kentucky Derby races,” Larry, 52, continued. “We are glad to spend time with my niece Chloe (pictured). I am going to try not an embarrass them with my dance moves.”
Within the snap, Dannielynn flashed an enormous smile as she sported the dazzling black halter costume. The robe featured a plunging neckline with sparkles down the middle and across the again, and an open slit.
Dannielynn’s hair was additionally a nod to Anna Nicole, who died in 2007 from an unintentional drug overdose. She wore her blonde locks in a gentle updo like her mother did within the early aughts.
Followers flocked to the feedback part to share their love for the late mannequin’s mini-me, with one particular person writing, “You two look so incredibly amazing! Very sharp Larry and DannieLynn has grown to be a beautiful young lady,”
A second gushed, “Stoppp the resemblance is unreal.”
Rounding out the candy remarks, a 3rd social media fan commented: “You both look amazing!!! At first glance, I saw Anna and thought it was a very old pic. Wow, does Dannielynn look like her Mother. To see her all glammed up like that, she looks like a beautiful young lady coming into her own. Lots of love from me.”
Whereas on the carpet, Dannielynn remarked to a reporter that carrying the costume “is the closest to a hug I can get from her.”
Larry spoke to Folks in regards to the heartfelt second, sharing he’s had the costume “for years,” but it surely was “emotional” to see Dannielynn carrying it.
“It was emotional because the last time I saw that dress was on Anna,” admitted Larry, who recalled that when Dannielynn “was a little girl, she walked over and she put her hand on the dress.”
“And now that she’s actually old enough to wear it, it just seems surreal that we’re at this moment.”
Getting candid on selecting the black quantity specifically, Larry defined “I think she’s doing a fashion experiment for herself. Also, I think it’s really meaningful for her to wear. I’m just glad she’s going through and starting to wear some of [Smith’s clothes] because she could literally pick out an outfit a day for the rest of her life and never wear the same thing twice with everything.”
The dad-of-one has actually saved all of Anna Nicole’s clothes, spending “over $200,000 in storage bills” to avoid wasting all the late star’s belongings to go all the way down to Dannielynn.
“[I] just hope that she would appreciate some of these things someday,” famous Larry. “She’s just now starting to get into the curiosity of some of the fashion and things in her mom’s world.”
“When somebody passes away, you think, ‘Oh, I’m not getting rid of anything. And then you go through the emotions of, okay, do I really want this? Do I really need this? … and you think, ‘Well, if there’s just one thing in there that she can connect with, that gives her a sense of who her mom was. So it was really special that she picked out the dress to wear.”
Larry and Dannielynn aren’t any stranger to the Derby in Louisville, Kentucky, because the father-daughter duo have gone collectively yearly since she was 3 years previous. As for why they began so younger, Larry confessed it “was really born out of the babysitter cancelling on me the first year I brought her!”
“And then everybody was like, ‘Oh, how cute. And then I thought, ‘Well, she wasn’t that much trouble last year. So it became a tradition,” he expressed. “Then people started looking for us and then the outfits had to be bigger.”
Final 12 months, the photographer gushed over how the teenager has been capable of embrace the style of the south on her personal for the primary time.
“We are having a great time,” Larry advised Us Weekly in Could 2024. “Dannielynn is enjoying one of [her] first years getting into the fashion of the Derby. She wore a dress that was Janet Jackson’s on Friday and got a major haircut because she wanted ‘another look’ for Derby Day.”
Earlier than Derby Day, Larry and Dannielynn at all times make it a degree to attend the Barnstable-Brown Gala at Barnstable-Brown Mansion in Louisville.
The gala is a significant spot for the pair, as Larry revealed on Instagram in 2023: “Tonight is the 20th anniversary where I met Dannielynn’s Mom at the same event.”
Anna Nicole had iconic model all all through her profession, which she began in Playboy journal in 1992. The starlet went on to mannequin for H&M, Guess and different main retail manufacturers.
The actress’s demise got here at age 39, simply 5 months after the delivery of Dannielynn. Previous to her passing, Anna Nicole’s son, Daniel, who she had at 17 together with her former husband Billy, died a 12 months earlier in 2006 at 20 years previous. He additionally died of an unintentional drug overdose.
Throughout a listening to after her demise, the tv character’s then-boyfriend Howard Ok. Stern stated, “Anna and Daniel were inseparable. Daniel was without question the most important person in Anna’s life.”
It was reported that at Daniel’s funeral, Anna Nicole tried to climb into his coffin.
“He comes to me in my sleep …,” she advised Leisure Tonight ten days earlier than her demise. “It’s like he’s calling me to come to him.”
Daniel did get to satisfy Dannielynn earlier than his demise, having gone to the hospital to see his mother and sister the night time earlier than he died.
“When Daniel arrived in the hospital room he went straight to his baby sister. He embraced his mother and sister and told them both that he loved them,” her lawyer Michael Scott stated in a press release in 2006. “Daniel was very helpful to his mother and baby sister. On several occasions throughout the night, Daniel assisted his mother to the bathroom, as she was still in a lot of pain from her C-section.”
After the demise of Daniel, Howard claimed he was the daddy of Dannielynn – to which Larry filed a paternity swimsuit and he was discovered to be the daddy.
