Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith's Death
Rita Crosby (Grand Central Publishing, New York, NY 2007).

Chances are you have heard all about the Anna Nicole Smith saga. First coming to fame for marrying the old and wealthy J. Howard Marshall a decade ago, she was never far from media coverage, especially when her husband died and one of his children challenged her inheritance.

That media exposure increased significantly beginning in late 2006 with the death of her son, the birth of her daughter and her own death in February  2007, all within a period of a few months. Even after her death, there was a fight about where she should be buried, who should get custody of her daughter (indeed, who was even the father), and of course who might stand to inherit her share of the fortune of her late husband. All of this was the media circus of the year, splashed across television screens and magazine pages for a period of several months.

If you were paying attention to all of this and thought there were a whole lot of things that didn't add up, you're not alone. And you're right.

Rita Crosby, an Emmy-Award winning journalist for MSNBC, has researched this story extensively. She presents the details of what was going on behind the scenes, and it is quite different than what was being portrayed to the public.

What possible interest does this story hold for readers of the Barnabas Ministry? You may not care about tabloid celebrities, but you'd better care about this story.

First, it is a story of abuse. I was shocked, but not surprised, to read about how Anna Nicole Smith was a pawn to those around her. If her handlers were cult leaders, there would have been an outrage. But somehow her handlers have escaped such criticism in this case- in part due to the fact that lawyers have figured out what countries, jurisdictions and media outlets allow you to get away with all sorts of things. (In March 2008, After this review was originally written, a grand jury in the Bahamas found that Smith's son Daniel died from a combination of various drugs found in his system. But they found no evidence of a homicide. Surprise, surprise.)

Second, it is a story of manipulation- of Smith, the media and the public. To those of us who saw the pictures in magazines or interviews on television and cable news channels, that only touched the tip of the proverbial iceberg of what was really going on in this woman's life. Our culture has an insatiable appetite for celebrity news, and especially celebrity "dirt." Yet, when you find out how this story ended up before the world, Crosby shows us the dirty, symbiotic relationship between the celebrity and the media. We see the story of how this side of the media works-- for example, the con job about how she supposedly wanted to "get away from the media," how much money her handlers were able to shake out of the media, and just who it was who was taking (and selling) all the pictures.

Third, it is a story of secrets. Indeed, Crosby herself writes:

"Reality is sometimes unreal." What an understatement with respect to this case! Some of these secrets uncovered here are just astonishing, they defy description. Crosby, through her investigative work, first provides all sorts of background and then synchronizes critical events surrounding the death of Anna Nicole. With a focus on facts, she presents the story in a much more thorough way than has otherwise been made available. There are all sorts of secrets laid bare and further questions raised, but none of these ever saw the light of day as the media was managing to fill air time and sell magazines with the story they wanted to sell and the public wanted to watch.

The point is this: Most people, and most Christians, are naive. We'd never dream about doing cold, calculating things that some will do. Further, we tend to accept what we are told through seemingly credible sources. And we are as susceptible to popular prejudices as anybody- perhaps even more so when they fit with portions of our world view. So when we hear the story of "poor Anna Nicole Smith" dying due to having a boatload of drugs in her system, we think she was just some out of control celebrity druggie. We'd never imagine we'd have the story wrong. Way wrong. And when you find out who is complicit in her death, you'll be stunned.

Reading this book will inform you about Anna Nicole Smith and those around her over the last few months of her life. But more than that, it will open your eyes to see the celebrity-media culture in different way. It will open your eyes to a case history of abuse and manipulation and incongruities, and how what is presented is not always what it seems to be.