Anna Nicole Smith's lung collapsed: lover

Ex-Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith is recovering from pneumonia and a collapsed lung, her lawyer lover Howard Stern has revealed.

Smith, 38, was rushed to the The Doctors Hospital in the Bahamas on Monday in severe pain to undergo emergency surgery.

The medical centre is the same one in which baby daughter Danielynn was born and 20-year-old son Daniel died less than two months ago.

In an e-mail to US TV shows The Insider and Entertainment Tonight, Stern said Smith was on antibiotics, but still in a great deal of discomfort.

He explained how the former playmate was rushed to hospital on Monday with fluid in the lower lobe of her right lung, which had caused it to partially collapse.

Stern said Smith began feeling pains in the right side of her chest and back.

Smith underwent surgery to drain her lung and a CT scab revealed she was also suffering pneumonia.

She was later released with a dose of antibiotics.

"We are hoping for a quick recovery," Stern's e-mail added.

Smith gave birth to daughter Danielynn in The Doctors Hospital on September 7 this year.

But just three days later 20-year-old son Daniel died suddenly while visiting his mother and new baby sister. He was buried on Nassau Island on October 19.

Smith has remained in hiding for the last two months, looking after Danielynn and mourning the loss of her son.

After Danielynn's birth, photographer Larry Birkhead announced he was the father and claimed Smith had fled to the Bahamas to make it more difficult for him to get paternity rights.

But in an interview with CNN's Larry King, the new mum's long-term personal lawyer Howard K. Stern came forward to announce he loved Smith and was in fact the baby's dad.

On September 28, Smith and Stern exchanged vows in a commitment ceremony, but, still insisting he is the father, Birkhead went on to file a lawsuit to challenge paternity.

Authorities in the Bahamas are currently debating whether the former model is a legal resident of the paradise islands. If she is thrown out of the country she may have to face Birkhead's challenge in court.