The Netflix documentary Anna Nicole Smith: You Don't Know Me directed by Ursula Macfarlane delves into the complex life of Anna Nicole Smith, starting from her early days as Vickie Lynn Hogan, a single mother working at a Houston strip club.
The documentary explores how Smith manipulated her own backstory and marketed herself, claiming a childhood of poverty and mistreatment by her mother, Virgie Mae Hogan. However, multiple sources in the documentary refute these claims, stating that Smith's family was not poor and that her mother loved her and kept her out of trouble.
The film reveals a shocking allegation that Smith was a victim
of sexual assault by her biological father, Donald Hogan. Although the claim
couldn't be corroborated with other sources, Smith's brother, Donnie,
responds with disbelief but acknowledges that it wouldn't be out of
character for their father.
“We were shocked to discover that,”
says director Ursula Macfarlane, speaking to Vanity Fair. “But for me, it
explained a lot as well. If you look at the timeline of her life, it’s after
that moment that things start to unravel.”
“I think it must have affected her,” says Macfarlane.
“Everybody wants a father figure in their life. Everybody wants someone to
look up to. And you can see in the archival footage, she was just so over
the moon, delighted to see the dad that she hadn’t seen since she was a
baby, that she’d never known. It just made me incredibly sad…. It was a
devastating thing. It was a bombshell.”
This alleged assault reportedly had a profound impact on Smith
and may have contributed to her subsequent struggles and unraveling.
The
documentary also talks about how her son’s passing was linked with her own
drug use and later demise.
