If you’re one of the millions of people who kicked her when she was tipping the scales, America’s hottest heiress has a message for you.

Shit happens….and then you live,” Anna Nicole Smith once said. And she’d know. Curled up on a purple leopard-print couch in her San Fernando Valley home, Anna Nicole is, well, a little shaky today. Admittedly, so is FHM—Anna Nicole’s house, the place she says she almost never leaves, feels hermetically sealed. The home is a Marilyn Monroe shrine with photographs and paintings of the ‘50s icon everywhere. Even though Anna Nicole’s TV-immortalized poodle, Sugar Pie has taken a bite out of FHM’s calf upon our arrival, we’re still happy to be here: This interview had already been canceled four times, with Anna Nicole’s attorney/gofer Howard K. Stern offering excuses ranging from “Anna’s just getting over walking pneumonia” to “One of Anna’s dogs had to go to the pet hospital.” The 36-year-old seems to have made an impressive near recovery. She looks absolutely stunning without a lick of makeup.

“I’ve got so much on my plate—acting, modeling, movie scripts,” Anna Nicole says, “that I’m probably gonna die at 37 like Marilyn.”

Should she prove prophetic, the former Vicky Lynn Hogan will have packed a full lifetime’s worth of drama into those 37 years. More or less abandoned by her parents and raised by an aunt in dot-on-the-map Mexia, TX, the bombshell dropped out of school in the ninth grade, married a fry cook at 17, was a single mother by 19 and received implanted double-D cups at 21—the better to dance topless at Rick’s Gentlemen’s Club in Houston. There she met 89-year-old oil billionaire J. Howard Marshall, whom she finally agreed to marry in 1994. Nearly 14 months later, Marshall died and the 26-year-old Anna Nicole was vilified as the world’s most shameless gold digger, despite already having become a phenomenon as the face of Guess Jeans. After two soap-opera-ready trials, she was awarded $89 million, and nine (so far) grueling years of court costs while battling the appeals of Marshall’s son. “Just give it to me,” she says of the money. “I’m waitin’.”

In the interim, her weight ballooned, her Guess gig disappeared, and her films—1995’s To the Limit and 1997’s Skyscraper—bombed. Since Anna Nicole had yet to receive a penny of inheritance, she needed a gig. Enter E!’s The Anna Nicole Show. Never mind that critics were horrified at the sight of a slurring Anna barking orders at Stern, her “best friend,” while stuffing her red-lipsticked mouth; the jaw-dropping circus of a show was a massive hit. Two and a half years later, it’s still rolling. And while the star is again a knockout, Anna Nicole’s fascinating life-as-a-train-wreck continues.

“On her show, Sharon Osbourne had an Anna Nicole big, fat person have my husband’s ashes all spilt out and me grabbin’ them up and makin’ fun of me and my dead husband,” she says, eyes welling up. “How dare someone. I loved my husband so much. But now I think he wants me to go on with my life and I’m ready to have fun.” She then flashes a blinding smile and elaborates: “Kinky, fun sex!”

WHAT’S THE KINKIEST SEX YOU’VE HAD?
Well….a ghost would crawl up my leg and have sex with me at an apartment a long time ago in Texas. I used to think it was my boyfriend, and one day I woke up and it wasn’t. It was, like, a spirit and it—woo! [miming a ghost flying from her her bedsheets]—went up! I was freaked out about it, but then I was, like, “Well, you know what? He’s never hurt me and he just gave me some amazing sex so I have no problem.”

YOU’RE SURE THAT WASN’T A DREAM?
It was not a dream because it was happening every night. One night at almost daylight—and that was the time my boyfriend went to work—I had woken up ‘cause I felt it comin’ up my leg and I saw it. I told my boyfriend and he didn’t believe me. Of course….MEN!

THE DIRTY BASTARDS. BUT, HEY, YOU MUST NEED THEM BECAUSE YOUR SHOW PAINTS YOU AS A, WELL…AS A WOMAN IN HEAT.
Oh, I am a woman in heat—I’ve been in heat for a long time. Back in Texas, I used to climb the clothesline pole and [mimes writhing against pole] get off. My grandmamma caught me one time and whipped my ass with a switch pole. [laughs] So she musta done it herself.

YOU ALSO USED TO BUM YOUR MOTHER’S VIBRATOR, DIDN’T YOU?
That’s true. I snuck it out from under her cabinet, would lie on the floor when they were gone and just get at it.

DID SHE EVER FIND OUT?
I don’t know—but she did keep puttin’ it in strange places. And I’d freak out when I couldn’t find it: “Where’s the vibrator? Where is it?” And when I found it, I’d be [pretending to triumphantly hold said vibrator] “Ahhhh!” I must have been 11 years old, so I’ve been havin’ orgasms since 11. I’m just a sexual person; I can’t help it.

DO YOU EVER LIKE JUST PLAIN VANILLA SEX?
Oh, I ain’t plain one bit—I do it ALL.

HOW MUCH SEX IS ENOUGH SEX?
Hey, I can go for days and days.

IS THAT HOW YOU GOT THAT HICKEY?
That ain’t a hickey, my dog bit me.

JOIN THE CLUB. SO YOUR SHOW WAS ONE OF THE FIRST REALITY TV MEGAHITS AND—
And now they’re everywhere. That’s what I hate: No matter what I do, everybody copies me. It pisses me off!

ARE YOU REFERRING TO PARIS HILTON AND JESSICA SIMPSON AND THEIR REALITY SHOWS, BY ANY CHANCE?
They’re trying to act like me and I hate that they copy me. But I don’t bother to watch that crap.

SO YOU THINK THEY THINK, “I’LL DO SOME DUMB BLONDE” THING LIKE ANNA NICOLE?
Yeah, but….do you think I’m dumb?

NO, WE, UH, WE’RE JUST REFERRING TO THAT AGE-OLD TERM THAT’S BEEN AROUND SINCE, WELL, MARILYN MONROE.
OK. I mean, just because I didn’t go to school and I don’t know big words and stuff, well, I can’t help that. And I’m not going back to school. I mean, what for? I’m not gonna say all the places I’m going, though, because I have a death threat. The FBI is working on it.

UH…WOW. YOU’RE TELLING US SOME AMAZING STUFF TODAY.
Yeah, well, I tell the truth and I get in trouble. I mean, everybody makes fun of me all the time. Like, I cannot believe what Drew Barrymore did: She went on Saturday Night Live and dressed up like me and made fun of me on Larry King. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, God, an actor making fun of another actor? [tearing up] And I loved her, but she really hurt me.

OH, HONEY….DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE ARE SO FASCINATED BY YOU?
I have no clue. I honestly do not know.

IF YOU WEREN’T YOU, WOULD YOU BE INTERESTED?
Well….when I see myself all painted up on television. I’m like, “That girl’s pretty,” but I don’t think of myself as pretty. I think I’m plain-Jane. When I see myself on TV, it’s different, like two different people. It’s really weird.

IS BEING RICH AND FAMOUS AS GREAT AS YOU THOUGHT IT WOULD BE?
No. But I love the attention. I crave the attention. I have to have it. And I love my fans. Actually, I love everybody, even the people who hate me. I’m just a lovable person.

IS THAT HOW YOU WANT TO BE REMEMBERED?
I’ve always wanted to be like Marilyn, but I know I could never, ever be compared to her. But I’m sure gonna try. I just want to make people smile and be happy. I just want people to love me before I die.