Whether you TiVo’d her every slurred word and tragic Bahamian misstep or denounced all she represented as grease on a slippery slope toward cultural ruination, ignoring Anna Nicole Smith was futile.

From her televised legal crusade for a slice of her oil-magnate husband’s $1.6 million estate, to the who-done-it paternity case involving infant daughter, Dannielynn, Smith captured the prurient interest of a distracted American populace. Even as the country entered into war, the media continued to focus on her outlandish antics. Through copious cosmetic enhancements, wild weight fluctuations and the requisite reality TV show, Smith surrounded herself with a cadre of queer acquaintances – alliances that may have kept her momentarily centered, or further enabled her as the fractured tabloid fairy tale proceeded toward its grim denouement.

Following Smith’s drug-related death in February, estranged half-sister, Donna Hogan, has emerged from her quiet Texas town with a confessional account of her sister’s life, titled Train Wreck: The Life and Death of Anna Nicole Smith.

Hogan recently fielded questions from the Gay & Lesbian Times via e-mail. In her written answers, she at times refers to her sister by her given name, Vickie Lynn Hogan.

Gay & Lesbian Times: At what point during your childhood or adolescence did you spend the most time with your older sister, and what was she like then?

Donna Hogan: [During] the early days I was too young and don’t recall too much other than seeing Anna play outside. We found each other again when she was beginning to build a name for herself. I was so proud of her. She was always into rock ’n’ roll; she loved parties and clubs.

GLT: What is your first recollection of your sister’s obsession with Marilyn Monroe?

DH: The entire family knew was she obsessed with Marilyn since a young age. She had books, pictures, movies and memorabilia. She always wanted to look and act like her and become famous like Monroe. When Anna was a teen, she was very flat-chested and still had dark hair. She wanted boys to notice her, so the model was to mold herself into Monroe and lead the glamorous life Monroe led.

GLT: You were both sexually abused. Did you know about your older sister’s abuse before it happened to you?

DH: I was sexually abuse by Donald Hogan, our father. Anna was not; [her mother] Virgie [Arthur] protected Anna from Donald and then divorced him. I was not as lucky. Anna later claimed that Virgie physically and mentally abused her.

GLT: In what way did Virgie enable Anna Nicole early on? It is said she accompanied her to strip clubs where she worked.

DH: Virgie was overprotective of Anna and always worried about the bad crowd she was hanging out with in high school. That led to Anna quitting high school getting a job at the [fried] chicken place and marrying her first husband, the father of Danny. [Editor’s note: Smith’s 20-year-old son, Daniel, died of a drug overdose last fall while visiting his mother in a Bahama hospital, upon the birth of his newborn sister, Dannielynn].

GLT: Sandi Powledge told the Houston Chronicle that she had an affair with your sister from 1991 to ’93. Had you met Powledge or known of her?

DH: Everyone knew about the affair with Sandi. Anna was taking her shopping to expensive stores, buying her nice things. Anna liked sex with women and men, and she did not keep it a secret from those close to her, [though] to the media she denied [it]!

GLT: Your sister had a lot of gay friends, from interior designer Bobby Trendy, to close friends Patrik Simpson and Pol Atteu. Simpson and Atteu were in the Bahamas with Anna after Daniel’s death; they claimed to have helped name Dannielynn. Why do you think Anna felt so safe around gay men?

DH: Anna liked and respected the gay community since she was bisexual. I don’t think she had male gay friends in high school, but later on she enjoyed her male gay friends. They loved her and she loved them. She loved to shop with her gay friends.

GLT: On a related note, you have said you think [boyfriend and attorney] Howard K. Stern enabled Vickie by providing her with drugs and looking the other way as she self-destructed. Do you think her gay friends also may have looked the other way to stay in your sister’s good graces and the spotlight that surrounded her?

DH: I feel Howard K Stern was mostly to blame, since he was with [Anna] and Danny 24/7. Friends come and go each day. They may have seen her when she seemed fine, and at other times when she was obviously under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Anna made it very clear: don’t try to stop her from what she liked to do. If you did, you were out of her life. She threw [former boyfriend and celebrity photographer] Larry [Birkhead] out and then denied their relationship because he was trying very hard to stop her prescription drug use, especially when she was pregnant with their daughter.

GLT: The public knows much about your sister and her struggles, but little about your life. You are a mother and the owner of a gift basket shop. What was your life like back in the mid-’90s, as Vickie was thrust into the spotlight as Anna Nicole?

DH: My childhood was very hard. I was sexually and physically abused. As a girl, I dreamed that Vickie would come save me and I could live with her.

As we both grew into women, we followed a somewhat similar path: She stripped in gentleman’s clubs, I was a hostess. She was a single mom, so was I. She was hooked on prescription meds, so was I for a time. She liked to party, I did too.

One day someone told me, “You sound just like Anna.” I looked at myself in the mirror and threw [my pills] down the toilet. I had some early struggles and asked Anna for help when I was having a baby alone as a single mom. She suggested she take the baby. There was no way I was giving any of my kids up. I knew about Anna’s partying lifestyle. It took me quite a few years to get on my feet. I never once asked Anna for a dime, nor did I sell out to tabloids to tell family secrets for big money. For many years I did feel I wanted to protect Anna.

GLT: Rumors have circulated that Larry Birkhead is gay or bisexual. Former male model Kerrick Ross claimed to have had a relationship with him. What do you make of the rumors? Should Birkhead continue to fight for Dannielynn’s share of J. Howard Marshall’s estate?

DH: I have no information on Larry being bisexual. I do think he will make a great dad to Dannielynn, and she should receive something from the Marshall estate if the courts find my sister was eligible to receive these dollars. If Dannielynn does not receive the money, I will do everything in my power to make sure she is taken care of. I would set aside money from my company toward an educational fund for her to help Larry.

GLT: I’m struck by the early portrait of your sister as a waitress in a fried chicken restaurant, who met and married the cook [Billy Wayne Smith] at a young age. Was she a good waitress? Did she seem happy?

DH: I didn’t go there. I heard she did a great job; the customers liked her.

GLT: In recent photos of yourself, you sport blonde hair and appear strikingly like your sister in her prime. Some might say you are trying to look like Vickie, the celebrity. What inspired the transformation?

DH: I got asked that question on Dr. Phil and it really irked me! I am not trying to look like my sister. I was pale blonde as a little girl; as I got older it got darker. Like all my friends, we bleached it back to blonde. I have been blonde for many years as my hair stylist said with my pale complexion it is the best shade for my skin tone. I have tried darker lowlights, but the stylist felt it looked drab. My hair is blonde because that’s the best shade for my skin tone – no other reason.