Hugh Hefner "Not the Father" of Anna Nicole's Baby

Hugh Hefner has made a firm statement to the press "I can make it clear at this time that I am not the father of the child". This statement has been reported in CNN (cnn.com) and Fox News (foxnews.com).

Mr. Hefner, of course, was referring to Anna Nicole's infant child, Dannielynn, whose paternity has been questioned and discussed on various news outlets since her birth. The paternity of the baby has been under furious scrutiny since Anna Nicole died unexpectedly on February 8, at the age of 39.

While the statement may have been offered tongue and cheek, Mr. Hefner has made it clear that his feelings about the tragic former Playboy Playmate are not joke. Playboy will be offering three tributes to Anna Nicole Smith. There will be a ten page pictorial in the upcoming May issue of Playboy The cable channel, Playboy, will be airing an hour long retrospective. There is a on line memorial on the Playboy website (playboy.com).

Playboy's on-line tribute (playboy.com) features interviews and memories of the Playboy Photography Department staff. When Anna Nicole Smith sent her photos into Playboy for consideration, she was still named Vickie Lynn Smith. There was discussion about bringing her into for further testing. Some staff were against her because of her weight. She was tall, but weighed 160 pounds. In spite of the obstacle that her weight presented, Playboy brought her in for a test because her face was so great.

When she was having her nude photos shot, she seemed shy to the staff, according to the Playboy interviews (playboy.com). Since she had previously been a stripper in Texas, the staff seems uncertain to this day whether her shyness was an act. The photographers, reportedly, were reluctant to deal with her because she was heavy and they had to take extra care to pose her and drape her just right to camouflage the weight.