Anna Nicole Smith’s Daughter Dannielynn Debuts New Look During Kentucky Derby Appearance

Dannielynn Birkhead has a new look, but she’s still the spitting image of her late mother, Anna Nicole Smith. Dannielynn arrived at the 2026 Kentucky Derby alongside her father, Larry Birkhead, with a new hairstyle.

For the occasion, Dannielynn wore a Punk Rave Gothic Dress equipped with an embroidered, strapless corseted gown with a draped sheer skirt. Her tresses were “super iced platinum with jet black tips,” PEOPLE reports.

The look was Dannielynn’s idea, Larry told PEOPLE. The growing teen told her father she “she wanted something edgy and cool.” One of Smith’s friends, a hairstylist, helped to complete the look. “She chopped it all off and put some wild colors in it,” Birkhead tells PEOPLE. 

He says it was a shocker but something he’s embracing as she grows into her own. “I was kind of bracing myself at the hair salon,” he said with a laugh. “I guess she’s at the age to do what she wants to do, admitting he was “a little worried about it” at first, his daughter is “obviously old enough” to make choices in her life. 

Dannielynn, now 19, is vocal about how she wants to express herself. “This year is a different style for Dannielynn,” Birkhead explained. “People [are] always looking for her to wear something of her mom. And she’s done that a couple times, but this is kind of Dannielynn showing off her own sense of style, and she said it’s a goth rock theme.”

“So we’ve got this total style change up for her,” Birkhead added. “And this is kind of, I think, her coming into her own, doing her own thing and kind of exuding her own style and, and her choices that she made.”

Dannielynn was born in September 2006. Her mother died five months later from an accidental drug overdose. Birkhead’s paternity was established after he came forward, noting he’d been in a relationship with Anna Nicole but opted to keep it private. He’s raised Dannielynn away from the spotlight.