To be honest, we thought the Bahamas' authorities had undertaken their Daniel Smith inquest months ago, having concluded that the substance Howard K. Stern was spotted nervously disposing of down a hospital toilet moments after Anna Nicole's son's suspicious death must have been jars of his own collected tears, in anticipation of the strength he'd be required to show in the weeks to come. As it turns out, the much-delayed inquest is just about to get underway:

As father Larry reportedly enters final negotiations with the E! network to co-star in a reality show with daughter Dannielynn Hope Marshall Colby Dexter Fortensky Birkhead, sources close to the events continue to cast the Genetic Sweepstakes winner in a sinister light. Beyond the strenuously denied blow-job bombshells, we now have the testimony of former Birkhead bodyguard Mark Speer, who tells the NY Daily News of the time Larry arranged with paparazzi to be photographed grieving at the grave of Anna Nicole's son:

Oh my God, this clip from "Entertainment Tonight" is the saddest thing you'll ever see: Larry Birkhead is still exploiting that baby.

Ignoring for a moment the outrageous claims that she was genetically engineered to keep her greedy gay daddies in handcrafted loafers and Bahamian houseboys well into old age, the fairytale ending we all dreamed of for Dannielynn Hope Smith Birkhead appears to have finally come to pass. Only days ago, she celebrated her first birthday, opening dozens of gifts at a lavish party. (Her favorite: a real, semi-dehydrated pony from "all your loving godparents at ET and The Insider.") Now, following in the unsteady footsteps of her mommy, she's already scored her first E! reality show:

• Exclusive: Dannielynn at Her Party! [theinsideronline.com]

So today, nearly all of the celeb mags are breathlessly reporting the nastiest coupling we've come across: Anna Nicole Smith's baby-daddy Larry Birkhead and her attorney and semi-husband Howard K. Stern were, according to that strumpet Rita Cosby's new book, totally doing it! And struck a backroom deal, and there's a sex tape, and oh my God, gross.

As much of the world spent their Monday evenings funneling turpentine into their ears, hoping the primitive technique might somehow wash away the indelible vision of Larry Birkhead and Howard K. Stern engaged in "a compromising, intimate position," the two men figuring most prominently in the outrageous claims made by Rita Cosby's new book have begun to fight back. A round-up:
· On a Larry King Live guest-hosted by TMZ's Harvey Levin, Birkhead again dismissed the allegations made in the book, insisting it belongs next to "Harry Potter in the fiction aisle," among "similar, made-up acts of wizard-on-wizard depravity." [transcripts.cnn.com]

Last week, we were teased with news of "shocking" material contained within the pages of former MSNBC host Rita Cosby's bombshell-laden new book, Blond Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith's Death. For a conspiracy-hungry public who never quite warmed to Howard K. Stern's svengali-like presence and his sudden coziness with overly highlighted babydaddy Larry Birkhead, it instantly conjured up a host of sordid scenarios—everything from lusty man-on-man trysts to black market baby sales, from systematic bimbo-druggings to involuntary face-painting. Now, a leaked manuscript reveals that Cosby's claims include all of the above, and more:

OK! magazine's dramatically unspecific allegations yesterday that Larry Birkhead is not the upstanding, profoundly moral soul we'd expect an Anna Nicole Smith ex to be left us to speculate on our own about his torrid secrets. Now, TMZ dumps lighter fluid and a match on the smoldering coals with suspiciously well-timed rumors that MSNBC anchor Rita Cosby's dishy Anna Nicole tell-all — conveniently available Sept. 4! — claims Birkhead slipped Howard K. Stern something entirely different:

Those tender-hearted moralists at OK! magazine — who wrestled publicly with whether or not to print the pictures from its excrement-crusted Britney Spears shoot — are at it again: They now say they are dropping their planned exclusive coverage of Dannielynn on her first birthday. Since this can't possibly have anything to do with the glut of father-daughter pictures we just saw in Us Weekly, there must be some other, far more scandalous explanation—and there is! Please ready yourselves for earth-rending allegations that, unfortunately, can only be discussed with tantalizing vagueness:

We suspected strange things were afoot at the Circle K when Larry Birkhead awkwardly shuffled down the Teen Choice Awards red carpet. Somehow, we doubted girls of age 13-17 gleefully taped up posters of Anna Nicole's sperminator next to shots of Zac Efron's hair. Turns out our Spidey Sense was right—Birkhead had been nominated alongside such crackpot luminaries as Lindsay, Britney, and Sanjaya for a category that was abruptly scrapped when certain crazy bitches put on panties just so they could get them in a wad:

Rest easy—all is well at Birkhead Manor, even if Us Weekly's cover story on Anna Nicole Smith's last living heir somewhat disconcertingly crops daddy Larry out of the picture. (At least we're hoping those disembodied hands are Larry's, and not Tony Potts placing the one-year-old in a duffel bag for transportation to a contractually mandated appearance at Access Hollywood's studios.) And while the "$472 million baby" may tragically never get to meet her mommy, Dannielynn will at least be able to experience her through the multimedia shrine her father has erected in Anna Nicole's honor:

Forbes.com's Slideshows of the Rich and Famous series continues with their gallery of "The Most Expensive Celebrity Photos," featuring some of the largest sums ever lavished by gossip weeklies upon celebrities in exchange for the photo-exclusives to the milestone moments of their lives (first natural child, third adopted child, first European fairy tale wedding, last photo of deceased son, etc.). Pictured, Jolie-Pitt all-access chronicler People magazine pays a cool $2 million for touching photos of mother and newly abducted/rechristened family addition Pax Thien, a fee tied Dannielynn paternity sweepstakes winner Larry Birkhead for the first pictures of proud dad holding his darling bundle of cash joy.

It's time for one of those sporadic check-ins to see how Larry Birkhead and court-certified genetic property Dannielynn are faring. The two have been in L.A. for a little while now, where Birkhead has had the opportunity to introduce his baby daughter to some of Anna Nicole's favorite local haunts ("And that's the hamburger joint where your mom got tanked and sexed up a waitress!"). Amazingly, Birkhead already sees a lot of Anna Nicole in Dannielynn, beyond superficial similarities like the constant gurgling and need for an occasional bottle feeding:

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so them in often. Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and tell everyone about the time you spotted a grocery-shopping Larry Birkhead getting a head start on Dannielynn's food-dependency issues.

Anna Nicole Smith's 2001 will—which named her deceased son Daniel as her sole heir and Babydaddy Sweepstakes also-ran Howard K. Stern as its executor—has been filed by Stern in an L.A. probate court yesterday:

NBC Universal reportedly paid $1 million for exclusive access to Dannielynn Hope Marshall Birkead, a deal that is now culminating in her Journey to America, as well as an honorary godfather title and round-the-clock blankey duty for Access Hollywood reporter Tony Potts:

A final attempt by Anna Nicole Smith's tenacious, pug-faced mother Virgie Arthur to prevent paternity sweepstakes winner Larry Birkhead from returning to the U.S. with daughter Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern Birkhead (according to her reissued birth certificate!) has been shot down by a Bahamian court:

• Donald Trump seizes the moral high ground once more by purchasing the S&M undergarment Rosie O'Donnell wore in that movie with the posters that terrified you as a child and sending it to Barbara Walters' office. [Page Six]
  

In a savvy and lucrative media transaction that would have made her mother proud, 7-month-old Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern quietly arranged to sell the exclusive first photos of herself posing with recently adopted biological father Larry Birkhead to OK! magazine (pictured on the front page of today's NY Post, cooing adorably on his belly). In the interview, Birkhead shed some light on what originally drove a wedge between the two lovers (hint: it rhymes with "rugs"), as well as demonstrated an amazing capacity for forgiveness towards his babymomma-hogging nemesis, Howard K. Stern: