Dannielynn Birkhead Explores Late Mom Anna Nicole Smith’s Past On 20/20

Dannielynn Birkhead was just five months old when her mother, the late Anna Nicole Smith, passed away from an accidental drug overdose. And now, 14 years later, the teenager is exploring her mom’s past with her father, Larry Birkhead, by her side for a new “20/20” special.

Airing Friday, ahead of the 14th anniversary of her death, the new special will feature Dannielynn visiting “the most influential places in Anna Nicole’s life for the first time with her father,” including a trip to her childhood home of Mexia, Texas. According to a press release, they’ll “meet her high school friend and see the places she frequented before becoming famous.”

The trip will also take them to Los Angeles, where the two will “visit several sentimental locations” and Dannielynn will see, “for the first time, some of Anna Nicole’s memorabilia from her life and career, tucked away in a storage locker following her death.”

A preview clip from the special shows Larry digging into the storage locker and pulling out a number of items from Anna’s past, including a wedding dress, old clothes she wore on dates with him and a photo album.

“Dannielynn has no idea that she’s gonna see these things. All this is a surprise,” says Larry in the footage. “She has a big heart like her mom had and I think she could appreciate these things.”

“This is stuff that I had for you for like a long time,” he says, as she reacts in shock.

“Anna should be remembered as this larger than life figure that was really a caring, giving person, a beautiful lady who loved her fans and loved her family,” he adds in the footage.

A trailer for the special also shows one of Anna’s childhood friends telling Dannielynn she looks “just like her” mom.

“Dannielynn’s a teenager now and she doesn’t really know a ton of things about her mom,” Larry says in the footage. “As a dad who has a child whose mom passed away, I thought, why not travel back to Anna’s beginnings. To be really honest, I didn’t know a lot about Anna, her early years.”

“To this day Howard has been supportive,” Birkhead said. “Almost [as if] the same loyalty that he had for Anna has now carried over to me and Dannielynn.”

“When you talk about Anna Nicole and you talk about where she came from … you talk about the court battles,” he also told ABC News. “In between, there were a lot of happy moments for her. There was a lot of highs before there was a lot of lows.”

According to ABC, the special will also report on “the dichotomy between who Anna Nicole was in the spotlight and who she was in private as Vickie Lynn Smith, her rise to fame, life in the limelight, her tragic death in Florida and the unanswered questions about her death.”

Anna Nicole passed away in 2007 at the age of 39 following an accidental drug overdose. Following a court battle over custody of Dannielynn, Larry has done a pretty good job keeping his daughter’s life private — doing the occasional interview and making annual appearances at the Kentucky Derby.

The “20/20” special airs Friday night on ABC.