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Stepping out in a black strapless gown adorned with a bold white flower detail, and sporting deep crimson lips, Dannielynn Birkhead – 19-year-old daughter of the late glamour model Anna Nicole Smith – beamed for the cameras.
She was making an appearance at the Kentucky Derby horse race – an annual tradition for Dannielynn and her father, former celebrity photographer Larry Birkhead, 53.
Except this time around, there was a notable difference to Dannielynn. Not only was the college student rocking an edgy short hairdo, she exuded a new kind of confidence in her dealings with the media – a confidence that, sources tell Woman’s Day, mark a “clear shift”.
There’s no denying that Dannielynn has grown up knowing full-well the fascination her life holds – in no small part due to her mother’s tragic death from a drug overdose at the age of just 39.
Dannielynn was just five months old when Anna Nicole died and, over the years – as she grew from a little girl into a woman with long blonde locks and a bright smile – nostalgic fans couldn’t help but compare the two.
The youngster doesn’t mind. Indeed, on May 1 as she attended the Barnstable Brown Gala on the eve of the derby, she told People the comments make her “feel good because I love my mum”.
“She’s super pretty, and I like being compared to her in the sense of like, ‘Oh, I’m pretty too’,” Dannielynn shared. “But I also like being known as my own person, because it’s always like, ‘Anna Nicole Smith’s daughter’, and never just Dannielynn. So I’m hoping my look right now will kind of help with that in a way.”
For her father’s part, he told the outlet, “I’m excited that she’s just being her own individual self”, but behind the scenes sources tell Woman’s Day that there’s more to the story.
“Danielynn is a young lady on a mission and this new look is a clear shift toward stepping away from being her late mum’s clone,” the insider explains.
“She is after more independence and her first year at college has given her the courage to do that.”
But the source says the shift is going to have repercussions for her devoted father, who fought to raise Dannielynn as a single father after a highly publicised paternity battle.
He strived to give his daughter as normal an upbringing as possible, quitting Hollywood for a quieter life in his home state of Kentucky – although he has also continued to embrace public interest in his late ex by sharing tributes to Anna Nicole on his and Dannielynn’s shared Instagram page.
Now, it appears the life he has forged with his only daughter is changing.
“It’s not going to be easy for Larry, who’s possessively protective of her and diligent about checking all her friends’ backgrounds, but things are shifting between them,” the source tells.
The insider claims there are rumours Dannielynn’s dramatic new look is a “defiance move” against Larry, who has “hung her entire childhood on her mum’s memory”.
“Danielynn didn’t know her mum so it’s long overdue they all started moving on,” the source says. “She can see Larry will never get over her mum, but to her, none of it’s ever been part of her world.”
The insider says that Dannielynn has found going to college – where she is majoring in forensic science – “liberating”.
“She does have a growing circle of friends and there have been some she’s closer to than others, but it’s easy to see how Larry’s hawkeye approach to her crew – especially dating – would become stifling,” the source adds.
“Which is why it’s not hard to see why she’d dramatically chop off those locks that Larry’s spent a small fortune on over the years.”
