Anna Nicole Smith gives first interview to ET


Anna Nicole Smith sits down for her first TV interview since the death of her son Daniel in September.

"Entertainment Tonight" reporter Mark Steines calls his exclusive interview, which begins airing Thursday, a "veritable rollercoaster of emotions."

On Tuesday, the model was hospitalized with pneumonia at the same medical center in the Bahamas where her 20-year-old son, Daniel, died in September, an attorney for Smith told The Associated Press.

"She has a slight case of pneumonia," attorney Wayne Munroe told the AP. "We've had a sudden change of weather here due to a cold snap."

In his blog on "Entertainment Tonight's" Web site, Steines says he traveled to the Bahamas where he met Smith's new baby daughter, Dannielynn, and was introduced to Howard K. Stern, her lawyer, whom she now calls her husband. In a video excerpt of the interview on the Web site, Smith talks about her son's death and is heard sobbing, "I don't understand why God took him and didn't take me."

Steines says his interview with the model was one of the most interesting experiences of his 15 years with the entertainment show, and that he learned "fear of constant paparazzi keeps Anna and her support team locked up, blinds drawn, and constantly aware that prying eyes are trying to snap photos."

"She seemed calmer, sadder, a bit broken, yet she looked quite beautiful," he says. "She introduced me to her daughter, Dannielynn, and the man she calls her husband, Howard K. Stern. She was a very gracious host in the midst of some pretty dramatic times."

"If I didn't have Howard or my baby, I wouldn't be here," Smith says in a video excerpt of the interview, available on the Web site.

When the talk turns to her son Daniel, who died days after his sister's birth and was buried Oct. 19, Smith sobs.

"But it is when she utters the name of her son, Daniel, that Anna Nicole is no longer able to compose herself," Steines says. "She crumbles like a house of cards, tears pouring out of her eyes, her body shaking from the sobbing. This is not just a controversial, misunderstood woman, this is a mother who has lost a child."

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