Former model and TrimSpa spokeswoman Anna Nicole Smith poses backstage at the 2004 American Music Awards in Los Angeles. Smith, 39, died after collapsing in a hotel room at the Hard Rock Cafe and Casino in Hollywood, Florida, Thursday, February 8, 2007. Source: TrimSpa/PRNewsFoto via Bloomberg News.

In the Bahamas, meanwhile, authorities ruled the baby girl could not be taken out of the country.

Smith had spent most of her time in the island nation since her son Daniel collapsed and died there in mysterious circumstances just days after her daughter's birth in September.

The circumstances of her son's death are yet to be determined, while authorities in Florida are also still investigating the cause of her own death at a hotel in Hollywood, just north of Miami, and have not ruled out a drug overdose.

Also unresolved is the legal battle the buxom blonde bombshell had waged for years for the estate of the wheelchair-bound, 89-year-old oil billionaire she married when she was 26.

Further controversy emerged in the Bahamas after the publication this week of pictures showing Smith lying in bed in a close embrace with the island nation's Interior Minister Shane Gibson.

Smith's latest boyfriend Howard K. Stern Stern on Tuesday expressed outrage over insinuations the two had an affair.

"I cannot believe that in my grief stricken state that I find myself having to defend Anna Nicole's honor," he said in a statement, saying the pictures were stolen from Smith's house in the Bahamas.

"All of Anna Nicole's personal documents were also stolen, including confidential contracts, banking information, attorney-client privileged documents, and our daughter Dannielynn's birth certificate," he said.

Stern filed an emergency petition for the release of the remains for burial on Wednesday, asking for Smith's body to be released for burial in Nassau, Bahamas.

"Prior to her death the decedent stated a desire ... to be buried next to her son, and have the petitioner purchase for the decedent two adjoining double cemetery plots" in Nassau, the petition said.

However, a judge in Broward County, Florida, where Smith died last week at the age of 39, ruled on Wednesday that the body of the blonde reality TV star could not be released at this stage, following a similar decision by a California court.

The courts say the body must remain in the custody of authorities in Florida, for possible further DNA testing as part of a lawsuit over the paternity of her five-month-old daughter, who may stand to inherit millions of dollars.

But Broward Medical Examiner Joshua Perper expressed concerns that delaying the burial any further meant the body could decompose.

"Any further delay might affect the integrity of the body and its aesthetic appearance," Perper said in an affidavit he filed with the Broward County court on Tuesday.

He said sufficient DNA already had been taken and that there was no need for further testing.

The ruling came amid a tug of war over who will claim the body of the controversial former reality TV star, whose life had been marked by over a decade of scandals and legal battles.

Smith's estranged mother and Stern both want the body to be buried, while former boyfriend Larry Birkhead had filed the request for authorities to keep the body for further testing.

Stern and Birkhead both claim to have fathered Smith's daughter Dannielynn.

Before her February 8 death, Smith had fought Birkhead's claims, insisting Stern, her long-time companion, was the father of the child.

On the eve of her death, a California judge had ordered Smith and her daughter to submit to DNA testing by February 21 or else appear in court.