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In a tragic end to what was considered one of the most bizarre celebrity scandals to rock the entertainment industry in years, former Playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith died Thursday after collapsing at a South Florida hotel. She was 39. 

According to Access Hollywood, Smith collapsed and was unresponsive to attempts to revive her at the Seminole Hard Rock Cafe Hotel and Casino. According to attorney Ron Rale, she was rushed to a hospital. Minutes later, Entertainment Tonight announced she had died. 

CNN and CBS News are also confirming the news, and according to TMZ.com, the Broward County Medical Examiner has already been dispatched to retreive her body.

It's the latest and ultimately final tragedy in a life that was plagued with ups and downs. Late last year, Smith lost her 20-year-old son Daniel Smith when he died suddenly while visiting her in the Bahamas. His death came just days after Anna Nicole gave birth to a daughter, Dannielynn Hope. 

In recent months, Danielynn has been at the center of a paternity scandal, with courts recently granting the former reality TV star a temporary reprieve from an ordered DNA test. 

Smith has been at the center of mass tabloid attention since the mid 90's when the then Guess model married 89-year-old oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II, the head of oil-based Koch Industries, which is part of a family fortune worth at least $400 million. 

He died in 1995 and Smith claimed his estate was rightfully hers. Her former stepson, E. Pierce Marshall, began an immediate court battle over who had a right to the estate. He died last June at the age of 67, but the case has since gone as high as the Supreme Court. 

Daniel Smith died Sept. 10 in his mother's hospital room in the Bahamas, just days after she gave birth to a daughter. A medical examiner hired by the family found methadone and two antidepressants in his system when he died. 

Written By Ross von Metzke
Article provided in partnership with GayWebMonkey.com.

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