Rita Between a Rock and a Hard Rock Place

The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Fla. issued the following statement to TMZ:

The press release put out today by Grand Central Publishing and included on TMZ.com includes a significant fact error and misleading information that may also be included in the book, "Blonde Ambition", about the death of Anna Nicole Smith. Here is the item in question:

Despite claims of one or two calls saying they believed Anna "collapsed" the day of her death, proof that there were in fact dozens of frantic calls between the key parties and a hotel liaison, all the while no one had called 9-1-1. Hotel employees also say the last thing the Hard Rock Hotel wanted was a high-profile, suspicious death on its property while it was in the midst of selling virtually all of the Hard Rock chain to the Seminole Tribe. (Chapter 13, pp. 215-229).

No employee of the Seminole Hard Rock would say such a thing. Here's why: The hotel -- always named the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino -- was already owned and operated by the Seminole Tribe of Florida. The Tribe was, in fact, in the process of purchasing Hard Rock International. A "high-profile, suspicious death" would have had no impact on the Tribe's purchase of Hard Rock, because the Tribe already owned the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel where Anna Nicole Smith collapsed.