Anna Nicole’s friends speak out

LOS ANGELES - Bonnie Stern, Howard’s sister, just came back from visiting her brother in the Bahamas and went right to Larry King to defend her brother’s actions. She also revealed more details about his whereabouts.

She claimed Howard was gone for approximately two hours, leaving Anna in the room sleeping — but the condition he left Anna is troubling to some. Earlier that day, Bonnie said Anna had been running a 105-degree temperature. It was so bad, a nurse had to ice down Anna’s body. Instead of rushing her to a doctor’s, they let her sleep, fearing a trip to the hospital would garner publicity.

While Anna ran the fever, Howard K. Stern went to check on the boat. Now many wonder why Stern is holed up in a tabloid TV show’s chartered jet, doing interviews.

Anna’s friend and business associate Alex Goen, the CEO of TrimSpa just returned from the Bahamas and spoke to Howard last night for 90 minutes. Access Hollywood correspondent Tim Vincent spoke to Alex this morning.

“Howard frustrated me. He frustrated us tremendously but when you think about it he frustrated us because we wanted more of Anna and he wanted to protect Anna,” Goen said.

Goen said he thought the fervor surrounding Anna’s death would die down, only it did not.

“Once Anna passed, I said this is the last chapter of the book. Then, with some of the happenings of the last few days, some of the different items from the house now being shown by the media, I said to myself ‘My gosh!’ maybe we’re halfway through the book.”

The item that most concerned the TrimSpa CEO: cans of Slim-Fast that surfaced in photographs, allegedly of Anna Nicole’s fridge.

“Certainly couldn’t have predicted [that],” Goen told Access. “Initially, yeah I was pretty shocked and concerned. I questioned Howard about it and Howard said absolutely she never took Slim-Fast.”

Goen also took time during our interview to respond to claims by Anna Nicole’s mother that her daughter died because she took drugs.

“I think she died of a broken heart,” he said.

And as for those drug allegations?

“I have never seen her take a prescription drug. I have never seen her take a non-prescription drug,” he said. “I have seen her drink alcohol.”

In fact, Goen adds Anna was not on speaking terms with her mother Virgie Arthur.

“Anna didn’t talk to her mother,” he said. “Anna despised her mother, and why is Anna the way she is? Probably because of her childhood, and not being unconditionally loved, I mean there’s nothing more that Anna Nicole wants than love. Why is she so insecure? Because there’s not love, there wasn’t that darn foundation in her life. She wanted love more than anything in the world.”

Anna’s friend Jackie Hattan blames the model’s death on Howard K. Stern.

Hattan claims she did drugs several times, allegedly with both Anna and Howard.

“I told everybody that I was fearful that Howard K. Stern was in my opinion was going to kill my friend for money, to try to get money,” she said.

In fact, Hattan said she is disgusted Stern is receiving money for interviews following Anna Nicole’s death.

“I just don’t understand. I just can’t understand how somebody could replace somebody’s life for a potential windfall of money,” she said. “There’s, you know, a sick murderer on the loose,” she added.

“Howard had her just asleep at the wheel and when there was a show or a shoot, it’s like, okay here, take some little ups, let’s get you goin’ because the cash cow was necessary,” she claimed.

Stern’s sister Bonnie refuted such claims during an appearance on “Larry King Live” last night.

“Anna Nicole controlled what Anna Nicole did. He did not feed her pills. He did not get her medication,” she told the CNN host. “Anna Nicole got her own medication and she did what she wanted to do.”

Bonnie Stern also refuted Hattan’s alleged relationship with Anna.

“I find that really hard to believe that she was her best friend. I was around Anna for two years everyday and never met this woman,” she said. “Never heard the name at all.”

Howard K. Stern was not reachable for comment.

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