Larry Birkhead: "I Thought Anna Nicole Smith's Collapse Was an Act"  6/14/07

Anan Nicole Smith's former lover believed her fatal collapse from an accidental drug overdose was a big act to escape her daughter's DNA test.

Larry Birkhead was fighting the model's then-boyfriend Howard K. Stern at the time over paternity of baby Dannielynn and he admits he was skeptical of Smith's medical emergency when news broke from Florida in February (07).

He tells U.S. talk show host Larry King, "(I was) in a dentist chair with half of my mouth numb. And I just remember looking up at the screen... It was right on the heels of, I think there was supposed to be some kind of decision on where the DNA tests would come down, if she was going to do it in the States. And I looked up on the screen and it said, 'Anna Nicole collapses.'

"And I thought, she's pulling a fast one on me. She doesn't want to do the DNA test, you know? And I really thought that. And I wanted to think, I think, more than I really believed it. And as things progressed, the day went on and it just - it was a lot of shock and just disbelief."

Birkhead won his paternity battle with Stern in April (07).