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Vice Blog

MONTREAL - TRUE LOVE TELEVISION


The other day my friend showed up at my place with some DVDs he'd taken out from the library. Wow, I thought, no one goes to the library anymore. I was impressed. But then he showed me what he'd borrowed. "Have you seen this?" he said, holding up a pink DVD with Anna Nicole Smith on it. "You have to see Cousin Shelly," he told me, and so he popped it in and I watched my first-ever episode of The Anna Nicole Smith Show (36 out of 49 of those reviews are 5-stars) and holy fucking shit. I was never interested in ANS before. I thought it was sad that she died and the whole thing seemed trashy and tragic but man, I didn't think I'd ever fall in love with her. Since that first episode I've watched almost all of them, and I read about her obsessively. And by the way, in my expert opinion Howard K. Stern is definitely not guilty and he truly loved her. Now my friends are asking me why I like Anna so much and why I'm taking pictures of her on the television. I think it's because she's like a pet. She's sweet and nice and round and soft and fat and beautiful and she's simple and lovely. And when questioned about her love for that old billionaire husband she explained that he had made her feel secure and that no one had ever loved her so much and that that was what made her love him back. That seemed like as good and honest a reason to love as any other, I think. After her declaration, she took the urn full of his ashes and, whimpering, she set them on top of her VCR.

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In this one, Anna's humping the air to test out the new couch. Although she spends most of the series on the sofa in a Klonipin-trance, she's pretty lucid here. The voice-over at this moment is Bobby Trendy's. He's talking about how Anna likes to decorate and he says this: "How would I describe Anna's style? Traditional, classy, with a little bit of French touch." Bobby Trendy's a jerk.

This is Kimmie, Anna's assistant. Kimmie loves Anna so much it's heartbreaking. Just the way she looks at her you can tell that Kimmie's love is real. I'm sure when people were watching the show back in '02 they laughed at Kimmie for getting this tattoo, but I'm sure glad she got it. Who's laughing now?

Ok, maybe you're laughing, but if you are it's because of the art, not the sentiment.

Ugh. Bobby doesn't do anything unless there's a gold panther in the shot.

This is from the episode where Anna tries to get a California license.

This made me sad, knowing what I know now, but actually in this brief moment in time, Anna was really happy; just sleepy after a full day of house-hunting.

Still, this is how I prefer to remember her.

ANNA NICOLE STEINBERG