1995–1999 Debbie Rowe

April 28 1996





Wearing a black surgical mask, pop singer Michael Jackson arrives with an unidentified companion at a performance of the play “Sisterella.”

May

Debbie Rowe gets pregnant again with Michael’s baby.

November 3 1996

Media learn about Debbie Rowe’s pregnancy.

Tonya Watt’s Myspace on the story breaking

http://www.myspace.com/tonyawattsmusic/blog/375534192


When the story broke that she was having his baby! The madness of Micheal Jackson’s life had landed in mine and let’s just say it was not pretty.. I was managing the bldg by this time… News trucks, paparazzi, you name it.. they were lined up outside our building and it was a big ol fat trip. Then everyone that lived in the building started getting phone calls from Hardcopy, Extra, Entertainment Tonight, British shows, papers. How they got our phone numbers is still beyond me. She started neeeding a body guard and could not leave her home. His life is sad and I get it now. I only tasted a peanut!

Then there was the night that she got a call from Hardcopy ttelling her that an Xfriend of hers was coming out saying some bad things. They told her if she would do the interview they would not run the negative one. Somehow I find myself in my bathroom gagging over the toilet. My nerves were about to have a heart attack.. ha ha What is going on? There are cameras in my living room.. and I am being interviewed with very strict guidelines of what I can and cannot say.. I hated it.. How did I find myself speaking on her behalf about her and Michael Jackson. I still have a copy of it. I can’t even watch it .. embarrassing.

The whole thing really turned out a big heart ache. Before it was all over noone in our building trusted each other. Someone stole a picture of her and MJ out of her apartment and sold it. She didn’t know who to trust and our building became bad energy.. I moved soon after and so did she. She will always have a soft spot in my heart!

weird.. many many years later I am now really good friends with his manager from back in the day. Random, I met him thru music.. in Nashville…So now I know two people that know him very closely and another reason I know he is innocent…….Just saying! MJ I love you! forever! If I had a son… he could come over and play cuz I trust you! I listen to my heart and my instincts are always right.. so fuckem…

She did end up becoming his wife and then they later divorced…. I kept her dogs while she went out of town to marry him.. ok true story whatever.. ha ha

Magic/Madness, November 3 1996

“At the time when the story broke, Debbie was supposed to meet him in Australia”, said Tonya Boyd. “She presumed that the trip would be off, that Michael would be so upset about what had happened that he would refuse to see her. She cried a lot that day.”

The day the story of Debbie’s pregnancy broke, Michael’s mother Katherine tracked Debbie down at her friend Tonya Boyd’s house where she was hiding.

‘I picked up the telephone, hoping it was Michael calling for Debbie from Australia, and this woman said: “Would you please put Miss Rowe on the phone?”

‘I thought it was a reporter, so I said: “She’s not here.” And the woman said: “Well this is Michael Jackson’s mother. I simply must find her.” Iimmediately handed Debbie the phone.’

Katherine was, as Debbie’s friend put it, ‘sweet as pie to her’, and talked for an hour about the sanctity of marriage, and the Jehovah’s Witness faith which she believed in so passionately.

Debbie, say friends, was impressed. In fact, by the end of the conversation, she had agreed that not only should she convince Michael to marry … she was practically ready to convert to the Jehovah’s Witness faith.

When Michael found out that Katherine and Debbie had spoken he probably suspected that his life was about to change. Then, when Katherine finally managed to get her superstar son on the telephone -according to what Michael told one of his managers- Katherine wept and told him to marry ‘that nice girl, Debbie’ and ‘give your child a name’.

Katherine pushed all the right buttons or, as one Jackson associate puts it, ‘she played him like a fiddle’. ‘Finally’, says a source close to the singer, ‘Michael agreed that he should marry Debbie Rowe. “It’s definitely the right thing to do,’ he said” ‘

Nov 7, 1996

The LA-based, British-run, Splash news agency is very smug about breaking the Michael Jackson baby story with London’s News of the World under the noses of us Yanks. “We’ve been working on the story for 2 1/2 months.

Our source told us originally that (Debbie Rowe) is having his baby, but it was us who established it was true,” says Splash partner Kevin Smith. Video of the woman, a blond nurse who helped treat Jackson for his skin disease, has been sold around the world by Splash, including to Hard Copy and Geraldo Rivera this week. News of the World broke the story Sunday, after confirming Splash’s information.

November 7th 1996

The nervous nurse who is bearing Michael Jackson’s glove-child may be cracking under the media glare.

Debbie Rowe has been dodging reporters ever since word of her peculiar pregnancy leaked out.

And worried pals yesterday said a 37-year-old woman in her condition should be taking it easy.

“I’m very worried about her right now,” Tonya Watts told “Hard Copy” last night. “I’m worried that the stress might be affecting her.”

“I don’t think she was ready” for all the attention, added Kevin Forrest, who along with Watts lives in the same Los Angeles apartment complex as Rowe.

As for the 38-year-old Jackson, Watts said, “Michael is actually very normal.”

“Everyone has a hard time seeing they are normal, two normal friends,” she said of the soon-to-be parents.

Jackson announced this week that Rowe was pregnant with his child, and denied reports that she was artificially inseminated.

But the mascara-wearing superstar has been unable to dodge suspicion that the pregnancy like his failed marriage to Lisa Marie Presley is an attempt to repair a public image that was damaged by accusations that he molested a 13-year-old boy. Jackson insists he’s innocent.

Watts insisted the pregnancy was for real.

“She didn’t break it to us until recently,” said Watts. “I mean we are all neighbors and great friends, and we have hung out a lot. But she would never tell us who the child belonged to.”

“She is very excited to give Michael something he has always wanted,” she added. “It’s like a dream come true.”

Rowe was quoted in the tab as saying that she and the Gloved One had sex but didn’t conceive. “Michael then said that artificial insemination would be a foolproof way of doing it and he was proven right,” she reportedly said.

Splash, November 7, 1996

How Splash confirmed it: “(Rowe) told us in her own words, but she didn’t know she was talking to us.” A deceptive tactic? “We call it investigative journalism,” says (Stuart) Smith. He says he met Rowe, but won’t say how. “She really is Michael Jackson’s best friend,” he says, but adds that the two aren’t romantically involved. “Theirs is a brotherly-sisterly love.” Says News of the World’s Stuart White: “She didn’t do this for monetary gain, but monetary gain will result. She made it clear her role is to deliver (the baby) to Jackson after three to four weeks. It will be looked after by two nannies hired by Jackson.”

November 8

What is the origin of the stories that Michael’s baby was conceived by artificial insemination and that MJ paid his wife, Debbie Rowe-Jackson, to have the child?

In early November 1996, the London tabloid, News of the World, claimed that Debbie Rowe-Jackson had conceived Michael’s child through artificial insemination at the Los Angeles Fertility Institute and was being paid $500,000 to have the baby. The tabloid further claimed that Rowe-Jackson would surrender custody to Michael and would retain only visiting rights. The New York Daily News quoted neighbors of Debbie’s, Kevin Forrest and Tonya Watts, as saying that she had told them she was having the child out of friendship, but it was a natural conception. The News of the World countered by publishing what they said was an interview with Debbie’s father, Gordon Rowe, in which he said she told him in a phone call that the child was conceived by artificial insemination. The December 2, 1996 issue of People magazine quoted a neighbor and “pal”, Mary Colandro, as also saying Rowe-Jackson was “having the baby for Michael as a friend” though it was a natural conception. On November 4, 1996, Michael Jackson confirmed that he was indeed to become a father, but called rumors that the mother was artificially inseminated “completely false and irresponsible” and denied he had paid Rowe-Jackson to have the child. Nevertheless, the tabloid stories were picked up and repeated around the globe by mainstream news outlets until they gained a dubious legitimacy in the mind of the public.

Michael Jackson and Debbie Rowe were married on November 14, 1996, in Sydney, Australia. Reports soon followed in the Australian tabloids that Debbie was asking for a divorce. At length, tired of immodest speculation in the media, Michael and Debbie issued a press release on January 6, 1997, in which they said, “Deborah has been extremely upset by the flagrant fabrications and utter lies that have been published about her and the false statements attributed to her father which he never made. Deborah’s father supports her decisions 100 percent. Not inclined to respond to false and vicious reports, Deborah is adamant about again setting the record straight that Michael is the father of the child, the pregnancy is not the result of artificial means, that she has not been paid to have Michael’s baby, and that she is not seeking or filing for a divorce.”

(San Jose Mercury News, People, Entertainment Wire)

“It was not an accident,” says Kevin Forrest, a neighbor of Rowe’s. “Michael wanted to have a child. And when Lisa Marie wouldn’t… well, it was not an accident. Debbie wanted to do this for Michael.”

Saturday, November 9th 1996

The woman who is carrying Michael Jackson’s baby has told friends that the King of Pop’s marriage to Lisa Marie Presley broke up because she wouldn’t have his child.

Friends of Debbie Rowe, a 37-year-old divorced California nurse, said she took on the task of bearing Jackson’s baby purely out of friendship and that she expects little in return and will let him raise the child.

“It was not an accident,” said Kevin Forrest, a neighbor of Rowe’s. “This was a planned pregnancy. Michael wanted to have a child for some time. And when Lisa Marie wouldn’t. . . . It was not an accident.”

“[Debbie] wanted to do this for Michael,” he added. “He’s ecstatic. She’s proud and happy to be able to do this for him. She loves him as a friend. It’s her dearest relationship.”

Forrest’s wife, Tonya Watts, said Rowe was hurt by reports that Jackson was paying her $500,000 to have the child through artificial insemination.

“This is a natural conception. Debbie finds it amazing that people won’t believe that. She told me two years ago, ‘Michael likes girls,’ ” Watts said.

Forrest said the baby “will be raised by Michael. She doesn’t want to have control of it. She said she did this for Michael. They’ll continue the same visiting relationship they’ve always had.

“Debbie denied receiving any money,” he added. “He’s not handing her a check. Obviously he’ll take care of the medical expenses. She can’t afford that.”

Rowe, a shy and decidedly unglamorous divorcee who lives with her two dogs in a luxury apartment building in Van Nuys, Calif., has been in hiding since news of her impending motherhood brought scores of reporters to her door.

Forrest and Watts said they noticed that Rowe was “showing” but didn’t say anything.

When word broke, Rowe was so upset, “she cried. She cried for three or four days straight,” said Watts. “She didn’t want anyone to know until the baby was born. She’s not Madonna. She’s not used to this, the paparazzi.”

So far Rowe has kept mum, but Jackson has confirmed that she is carrying Michael Jackson Jr., and a British tabloid says it has tapes of her in which she waxes ecstatic about the child.

Rowe and Jackson met in 1985 when he arrived at her work place the Beverly Hills clinic of Dr. Arnold Klein, dermatologist to the stars. Jackson was seeking treatment for vitiligo, a skin condition that whitens the skin.

Rowe’s three-year marriage was starting to crumble and would end in divorce in 1990.

November 14 1996









Concert in Sydney . After the show, just after midnight (thurs on the 15th) , Michael marries Debbie Rowe in the presidential suit of the Sheraton-on-the-Park Hotel.

He denies in a press release the news reports claiming that Debbie has been artificially inseminated.

Magic/Madness 14 November 1996

They were duly married at a hotel between Michael’s touring commitments. Afterwards, it was rumoured that Debbie Rowe received $1 million to give birth to Michael’s son Prince Michael Jnr. However, according to a reliable sources in the Jackson camp, Rowe actually received $500,000 -
and not to give birth but rather as a ‘wedding gift’.

Any story that she has a contract with Michael Jackson, and that she has received millions of dollars to bear his children, is simply untrue. Indeed no document has ever surfaced to support the rumour.

‘None of it is true,’ Debbie said when pressed to confirm stories of a deal. ‘ Why won’t people believe me? I would never have his children for money. I am doing it because I am his dear friend.

‘They’re adults,’ Tonya Boyd explains. ‘Say what you want, have any
judgement you like about it, but it’s their life, and they get to live
it whatever way they choose.’

‘They are cordial when they see each other,’ says Tonya Boyd. ‘Like many couples, they have an arrangement that works for them. No one can understand another person’s relationship, I guess. Not really.’

Nov 14, 1996

Michael Jackson was still married to Lisa Marie Presley when he first started trying to have a baby with a secret girlfriend!

His lover, Debbie Rowe, says sleeping with Michael was “the weirdest experience of my life” – because his idea of foreplay was to put on a horse’s head or a suit of armour!

But bedding the Gloved One was a thriller, adds the pretty medical assistant – calling Michael an “incredible” lover who left her exhausted.

Debbie also revealed: – She first became pregnant last December – the same month Michael separated from his wife – but miscarried three months later. – The baby boy will be named Michael Jr. – Debbie has agreed to give Michael full custody of their son. – Michael plans to raise the boy in France, and the child will never set foot in the US. – Terrified of kidnappers, the star will hire an army to guard his precious only child.

November 15 1996


Michael & Debbie attend the Australian premiere of Ghosts.

Concert in Sydney (attended by Debbie)

Katherine Jackson interview, November 22 1996

Just a few days after Michael Jackson’s Australian marriage to once-divorced nurse Deborah Rowe, who’s due to bear him a child in February, an enterprising San Diego radio station got a phone interview last weekend, with Michael’s mother, Katherine Jackson.

She says she is looking forward to the birth of her 22nd grandchild, and that she’ll still be friends with Michael’s first bride, Lisa Marie Presley, whom Mrs. Jackson describes as “down to earth.” It all depends on your perspective, I guess. Here’s what else Katherine Jackson had to say about her son’s abrupt nuptials…

Q106, San Diego, California: Was this a surprise for you?

KATHERINE JACKSON: Yes, it was in a way.

Q106: Did you know her, have you met her?

JACKSON: I’ve never met her.

Q106: Did Michael ever talk to you about her?

JACKSON: Oh, sometimes.

Q106: Did he talk to you in a way that you would think maybe, he was in love with her, or one day might want to marry her? Or this would be it?

JACKSON: Not exactly.

November 18 1996

Michael Jackson’s new bride is a far cry from the glamorous and famous woman his first wife Lisa Marie Presley, was.

Debbie Rowe, 38, is a divorced nurse who, up until marrying Jackson was living in a modest apartment in Van Nuys a not-so-well-heeled suburb of L.A.

Where Lisa Marie favours designer clothes from the likes of Versace,(unreadable) of make-up and regular visits to the hairdresser the new Mrs Jackson prefers basic jeans and T-Shirts and little make up.

She is solidly built and wears her blonde hair free flowing.

And while Lisa Marie gets around in limos, Debbie Rowe relies on her Harley-Davidson motorbike to get around Los Angeles.

Rowe was single and childless after divorcing her husband of six years a computer technician, whom she married in the early 80s.

She filed for bankruptcy in 1989 and was living in an (unreadable)-a-month apartment until marrying Jackson this week.

Jackson and Rowe met 15 years ago, when the superstar first came to see Rowe’s boss Dr.Arnold Klein, a Beverly Hills dermatologist about his rare skin disorder.

Rowe helped Dr Klein treat Jackson and, sources said, soon became a close secret confidante of the singer.

She has travelled all over the world with him on concert tours and their close friendship is said to have been a thorn in the side of Lisa Marie Presley during her marriage to Jackson.

Friends say Rowe’s apartement is covered in wall to wall posters of Jackson as well as memorabilia from her time spent travelling with him.

It is claimed that this is the second pregnancy to Jackson for Rowe.

She is said to have fallen pregnant in December last year, only to have a miscarriage in February.

Jackson has vehemently denied that Rowe became pregnant by artificial insemination. Such reports were “completely false and irresponsible.”

“He (Jackson) trust her like no one else,” a US magazine quotes a friend of Rowe’s saying.

“She is devoted to him. She has been an hand to soothe him. She has seen him at his worst, and his lowest, at his most embarrassing. She saw him humiliated by his illness. He has nothing to hide from her”

Rowe graduated from Hollywood High in 1978 and within 5 years had married.

When news of the pregnancy emerged friends of the couple strongly denied that Jackson had paid Rowe 3 million to carry his child.

“No money involved,” said one. “Debbie is just doing a nice thing for somebody. She genuinely loves him but as a brother. The baby is a gift of love.”

People Magazine, December 2 1996

WHEN MICHAEL JACKSON DECIDES to get married, he doesn’t exactly wait for June to roll around. On the morning of Tuesday, Nov. 12, Debbie Rowe—six months pregnant and apparently feeling it—said goodbye to her two beloved dogs, left in the care of neighbors in her Van Nuys, Calif., apartment complex, and boarded a jet bound for Australia. When she touched down in Sydney—Wednesday afternoon local time, after 14 hours in the air—the 37-year-old dermatologist’s assistant was whisked by limo to the Sheraton on the Park hotel. There, she disappeared into the $2,750-a-night Presidential Suite and rested. The following day, Jackson performed to a sellout crowd of 40,000 at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Then, around midnight, as the singer joined 30 or so associates at a post-concert party in a private room downstairs, Rowe slipped into something white and put on her makeup. At about 2 a.m., Jackson and a few pals made their way upstairs. The superstar sat down at a grand piano in the two-bedroom suite and played the Wagner march known to millions as “Here Comes the Bride” while Rowe entered and, after 15 years as Jackson’s friend, became officially embroiled in his strange—and increasingly troubled—world. “Please respect our privacy,” Jackson, 38, said in a release after the event, “and let us enjoy this wonderful and exciting time.”

How many days had elapsed since Jackson confirmed that he and Rowe were expecting a child? Ten. How many questions about the groom had been resolved by the hasty civil ceremony? Zero. The singer’s second marriage happened so fast, in fact, many people didn’t even realize he was already divorced from Lisa Marie Presley, 28, whom he wed in May of 1994 and separated from 20 months later. Their split became official last August, with no regrets on either side. “They fell out of love,” says Presley’s attorney John Coale. “Anything she feels is going to remain private.”

Rowe is already finding out how hard it is to know both privacy and the King of Pop. From the moment she was thrust into the spotlight by Jackson’s announcement that she was expecting, she has had to live with speculation that her baby is in part a public-relations ploy. Friends of Jackson’s insist that the marriage and pregnancy have nothing to do with his reported $15 to $20 million settlement of a child molestation suit in 1994, a just-published book about that case, or a new civil case being pressed in Santa Barbara (Calif.) superior court by the alleged victim’s father. Still, even Rowe’s father has expressed skepticism. Last week, Gordon Rowe, 67, a retired cargo pilot who lives in Cyprus, was quoted at length in News of the World, the racy British tabloid that reportedly broke the story of Jackson’s involvement with Debbie earlier this month. As published in NOW, Rowe knew his daughter was friendly with Jackson but was stunned when she told him of her pregnancy.

“I said, ‘Isn’t this the same man who was accused of child abuse?’” Rowe reportedly told Debbie. As published in NOW, Rowe said Debbie dismissed the allegations. “She said, ‘None of the charges against him were proved.’” She reportedly did not, however, dismiss reports—denied by the Jackson camp—of artificial insemination. “Isn’t he capable of fathering a child like anyone else?” asked her father. “She laughed and said, ‘Michael doesn’t do anything like anyone else. Dad, you have no idea who the real Michael Jackson is. He is the most compassionate person I have met in my life.’ “

Rowe’s father has since issued a general retraction of his NOW statements. Her friends insist that Rowe is acting out of the goodness of her heart. “I know she doesn’t want the publicity,” says Rowe’s pal Mary Colandro, 35, a tennis coach who has lived next door to Rowe for nine years. “She’s done all this for Michael. She told us she was having the baby for Michael as a friend.” She also told neighbors she was not artificially inseminated. “She said it was natural, and I believe her,” says Colandro. “On the other hand, she is Michael’s good friend. She is very loyal to him.”

Until recently, Rowe’s life was hardly the stuff of which cover stories are made. Born in Spokane, Wash., to Gordon Rowe and Barbara Chilcutt in 1958, Deborah Jeanne Rowe had moved to California by the time she was 15. About that time, her parents were divorced, and, according to NOW, her father took off for the Middle East. Soon after graduating from Hollywood High School in 1977, Rowe began working in the Beverly Hills office of dermatologist Arnold Klein. One former patient is still grateful for the care Rowe gave her father. “She held his hand during the surgery,” says the patient, “and called to follow up. She is the right hand to Dr. Klein. She really kept the business going.”

In 1982, Rowe married Richard Edelman, then a 30-year-old teacher at Hollywood High. The couple moved into a condominium in Van Nuys, where Edelman started his own computer consulting business. According to a pharmacist with whom Rowe had developed a friendship over the years, Edelman was “too quiet” for Rowe, a woman who, he fondly notes, “used language like a trooper but was always very pleasant.” By the time their marriage fell apart in 1988, a major problem seemed to be money. In 1989, Rowe and Edelman filed for bankruptcy, with assets of less than $40,000 and debts of more than $73,000.

To friends, Rowe has always seemed a good-hearted woman, most comfortable in jeans and T-shirts and not much makeup. She has two dogs, a golden retriever named Cuervo, after the Mexican tequila, and Harley, a German shepherd named for the motorcycle Rowe loves to ride when she’s not at the wheel of a truck. “If anyone has problems, she handles them,” says Colandro. “She’s a great rescuer.”

No doubt Jackson saw these qualities some 15 years ago, when he first met Rowe at the office of Dr. Klein, who was reportedly treating Jackson for vitiligo, a condition that causes skin discoloration through loss of pigment. Over the years, she and Dr. Klein accompanied Jackson on various world tours, and Rowe befriended the superstar. A few posters of Jackson popped up on her apartment walls, but no one was likely to hear Jackson’s “Billie Jean” blaring from Rowe’s stereo. “She seemed to prefer New Age,” says Colandro, “or easy listening.”

Though Rowe dated several men in the years after her divorce, pals say Jackson wasn’t one of them. And as far as anyone knew, she was not in a relationship last spring, when Rowe surprised her pharmacist friend with the news that she was expecting a child. “I’m doing a favor,” the pharmacist recalls her saying, “for a good friend.”

Most of her neighbors knew that the good friend was Jackson. He had just split with Presley in January, less than seven months after telling Prime-Time Live that he and Lisa Marie wanted to start a family. Apparently, Rowe was ready to give Jackson the child Presley did not. At first their plan took an unhappy turn, friends say, when Rowe miscarried last spring. “She was really sad for about a week,” says Colandro. But her pharmacist friend says she quickly bounced back. “She’s that kind of a gal,” he explains. “She doesn’t get heartbroken.”

As the world now knows, another attempt to conceive a child proved successful. But would Rowe raise the baby in her $840-a-month, one-bedroom apartment? Or would Jackson take custody and raise their child on his 2,700-acre Santa Ynez Valley Neverland ranch, complete with zoo and amusement park? How would the couple interact over time? Would money change hands?

When it came to marriage, Jackson seemed to want to act first and figure out the details later. A week before the Sydney wedding, his lawyers contacted the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages in Christchurch, New Zealand. (Jackson had show dates in Auckland on Nov. 10 and 11.) They filled out registration forms for Jackson and Rowe and asked marriage celebrant Anne Stubbersfield to be ready on short notice—which never came. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to marry him,” she says with a laugh. “New Zealand could have been put on the map.”

In the end, of course, that honor went to Australia, where, as Elton John told talk show host Rosie O’Donnell last week, “all the loonies get married.” (Now openly gay, Elton married a sound engineer, Renate Blauel, in Sydney in 1984; they divorced four years later in Britain.) But how loony is Jackson, really? If ever he could have been described as blissfully wacky, that no longer seems to apply. Three years after he was accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy in 1993, Jackson is still dealing with the fallout. Five former employees are suing him for wrongful termination, claiming they were threatened, harassed and forced to quit during the police investigation into the charges. A book on the case by author Victor Gutierrez—filled with legal papers, bank statements and photos—was published in Chile in September and has sold some 5,000 copies Stateside. And though he negotiated the multimillion-dollar settlement from Jackson in 1994, the father of the boy Jackson allegedly had molested recently hit the singer with another $60 million lawsuit.

According to one of the father’s lawyers, James E. Prosser, Jackson violated the terms of the settlement, which required him to make no public statements about the case, when he told Prime Time Live’s Diane Sawyer last year that the accusations were “lies, lies, lies, lies.” In addition, the suit claims that anti-Semitic lyrics in Jackson’s HIStory album (which were later changed by Jackson, who issued a public apology) were aimed at the boy and his father.

Jackson is, in other words, a man who could use a “great rescuer” like Rowe—and his friends know it. “She’s a really gentle person, very loving,” says Stephen Millard, marketing director at Epic International Artists, Jackson’s label in Australia. Adds another associate: “Lisa Marie had a mind of her own. Debbie is not involved in the limelight. She is very easygoing.”

So easygoing that she spent her first day as Mrs. Michael Jackson on her own—while her hubby, surrounded by his usual entourage of associates and kids, cuddled a koala at Sydney’s Taronga Park Zoo. Later, Jackson went, without Rowe, to the Australian preview of his new 35-minute film “Ghosts”, a horror/music video. At the entrance to the theatre, the singer was surrounded by fans, one of whom gave him a pair of blue baby booties, which he clung to during the screening. Rowe remained out of sight for the next few days as she, Jackson and several colleagues traveled from Sydney to Brisbane to Melbourne. Nor was she at the hospitals he visited, the events he attended or the concerts he gave. “She’s six months pregnant,” says a spokesperson for Jackson’s concert promoter. “She wants to rest.”

Or hide. Rowe has been getting a crash course in what it means to do “a favor” for a famous friend—as have many of her pals back home. In Van Nuys, one old buddy has turned down tabloid offers adding up to $20,000 for private details of Rowe’s life. “I guess it’s about integrity,” says her friend. “But it’s hard,” he adds with a laugh.

His friend Debbie doesn’t have it easy either, being married to a man who once had too little childhood and now may have way too much money and freedom. If Jackson wants the world’s sympathy, he has a tough row to hoe, but if it’s advice he’s after, there’s no shortage of givers. In Christchurch, Anne Stubbersfield may have lost her shot at performing Jackson’s ceremony, but she still has words of wisdom. He should “think seriously” about his future as a husband and a father. Take classes in parenting. Get prepared. “You’ve got to be normal now,” says Stubbersfield. In his own way, Michael seems to be trying.

Mr and Mrs. “King of Pop” are currently on a weeklong rendezvous in a some secluded European hideaway- a country known for its divine chocolate. They are actively performing their maritial duties, in hopes of bringing forh another little Jackson. I hear that Michael “just loves” these romantic vacations with his wife.

I also hear that Debbie intends to slap serveral of the supermarket tabs with lawsuits demanding retractions on their stories about her relationship with Michael.

Michael Jackson and Debbie Rowe were married on November 14, 1996, in Sydney, Australia. Reports soon followed in the Australian tabloids that Debbie was asking for a divorce. At length, tired of immodest speculation in the media, Michael and Debbie issued a press release on January 6, 1997, in which they said, “Deborah has been extremely upset by the flagrant fabrications and utter lies that have been published about her and the false statements attributed to her father which he never made. Deborah’s father supports her decisions 100 percent. Not inclined to respond to false and vicious reports, Deborah is adamant about again setting the record straight that Michael is the father of the child, the pregnancy is not the result of artificial means, that she has not been paid to have Michael’s baby, and that she is not seeking or filing for a divorce.”

February 13 1997

Debbie Rowe gives birth to Prince Michael Joseph Jackson Jr at the Cedar Sinai Medical Center of Los Angeles. Michael attends the birth and soon takes his son to Neverland. Grace Rwaramba and Pia Bhatti are hired as Prince’s nannies and they move to Neverland with Omer Bhatti.

I want a little Jackson No 2.(News) – Sunday Mirror May 11, 1997

Baby-mad Michael Jackson wants a second child with his wife Debbie Rowe. Jackson, who is in France with their three-month-old son Prince, has flown Debbie to Paris to plead his case – and is also said to have had his frozen sperm flown to her in Los Angeles. But Debbie is refusing to have another child unless she can live with Jackson as a “proper family”. A friend said: “Debbie doesn’t want to be a baby-making machine. She really cares for Michael, and wants him as a proper husband.”

Reading Eagle, May 19, 1997

Michael Jackson and his 3-month-old son, Prince Michael Jackson Jr., reportedly are living in France without the child’s mother. People magazine says Debbie Rowe has returned to her job as an assistant to a Beverly Hills dermatologist. She is living in the same Van Nuys apartment she had before becoming pregnant and marrying Michael Jackson. Jackson reportedly calls his wife twice daily from France, where he bought an estate. Rowe has been flying there every weekend to visit, People says.

March 25 1997

British magazine OK gets a world exclusive by publishing the first ever official pictures of Michael & Debbie with their son Prince (at Neverland) accompanied by a candid interview of the couple.


OK Magazine Interview April 1997





Interviewer: Michael, how does it feel to be a father?

Michael: It was an incredibly joyful experience. I’m in bliss 24 hours a day.

Interviewer: Can you talk us through the birth of your son?

Michael: It’s hard to take it step by step, but the snapshots in my mind from the birth show our excitement and nervousness. Debbie was so strong throughout the delivery. There were shouts of joy when the baby was born. I couldn’t believe the miracle I had witnessed. It was unbelievable!

Interviewer: Michael, describe the relationship between yourself and Debbie?

Michael: Debbie and I love each other for all the reasons you will never see on stage or in pictures. I fell for the beautiful, unpretentious, giving person that she is, and she fell for me, just being me.

Interviewer: Debbie, what are you current feelings for Michael?

Debbie: I love him even more now than before our son was born. Fatherhood has brought out a very protective streak in him. He is so loving and strong.

Interviewer: What is the boy’s name? Why is he so named and which of you does he look like the most?

Michael: His name is Prince Michael Junior. My grandfather and great-grandfather were both named Prince, so we have carried on that tradition and now we have a third Prince in the family.

Debbie: He’s so beautiful! I think he has my eyes.

Interviewer: Michael, among all your life’s glittering achievements, how does fatherhood rate?

Michael: Words can’t describe it. There is no miracle in life that compares with watching your son come into the world.

Interviewer: Has the baby smiled or responded in any way to the two of you yet?

Michael: He smiles all the time and his eyes twinkle when I sing to him. He definitely knows my voice. Debbie tickles his chin and he giggles.

Interviewer: Debbie, does Michael change the baby’s nappies, get up in the middle of the night to feed him and do his share of the chores?

Debbie: Yes, Michael does everything. He loves being involved in every aspect of caring for the baby. He is such a wonderful father, feeding him, holding him and of course, singing to him.

Interviewer: Debbie, you have married and had a baby with the most famous man on earth. What effect has that had on you?

Debbie: I have married and had a baby with the man I will always love and I am on top of the world. The only time I feel sad is when I see quotes attributed to me that I never said. Or when I hear late night comedians taking cheap shots at my husband when they are not true. Don’t believe 99% of the garbage you read or hear. I know that we will be under increasing public scrutiny and I don’t look forward to that, but I know that will always be a part of being married to Michael.

Interviewer: Michael, you so rarely give interviews. What is the one thing you would like to say to your fans at this time?

Michael: Thank you to all of my fans for understanding how important it is to me to protect my family from the public eye. I have lived in a “fishbowl” all my life and I want my son to live a normal life. You’ve stood by me throughout my career and now you share my greatest joy. I love you.

Interviewer: Michael, what are your hopes for Prince Michael Junior’s future?

Michael: I want him to grow up surrounded by love and family, to receive the best education I can provide him with, to discover and develop his talents, and to use his resources to make life better for those less fortunate than he.

Interviewer: Are you preventing Debbie from seeing the child?

Michael: No, that is completely false. We have been together as a family since the birth of our son, and we’ve cherished every moment as a family.

Interviewer: Michael, what has been your family’s reaction to the birth?

Michael: They are all very excited. I’m already getting lots of tips and advice about schools and such.

Interviewer: What sort of dad will you try to be?

Michael: The best! My father was always there for us through the stardom of the Jackson Five and through many of the ups and downs that followed. I too will always be there for my son. It’s the most important thing in the world to me.

Interviewer: Debbie, what are your family’s feelings about Michael?

Debbie: They’re crazy about him. They were delighted to discover how warm and genuine he is.

Interviewer: And how would you describe Michael’s strengths as a father?

Debbie: He’s very patient and protective. He never rushes what he’s doing with the baby. I was very proud of how tough he was about our privacy. He’s incredibly strong.

Interviewer: Michael, are you still close to your family? How often do you see your parents, brothers and sisters? Have they met your baby yet?

Michael: We talk and see each other all the time. We recently had a big ‘get-together’ where all the cousins met one another for the first time.

Interviewer: We believe the child’s godmother may be Elizabeth Taylor. What is it that draws you to Elizabeth? Many would call it an unlikely friendship. What do you have in common?

Michael: Elizabeth knew many of the things I went through growing up in the spotlight. I can say a few words or just sigh sometimes, and she knows what I’m feeling. It was wonderful to find someone who understood me so well. I pray for her, and I want her to share the joy of my son’s birth for many years to come.

Interviewer: What sort of gifts have you received for Prince Michael Junior?

Michael: We’ve received some fantastic gifts; wonderful treasures, stuffed animals, toys and baby clothes from around the world. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all my wonderful fans for helping to welcome our baby into the world!

Interviewer: Michael, what are Debbie’s strengths as a mother?

Michael: Debbie is a very strong and caring woman. She’s a wonderful mother!

Interviewer: Can we expect a song about your son on your new album?

Michael: The birth of my son has been very inspirational to me artistically, and there will definitely be a song in the future.

Interviewer: And one about Debbie, too?

Michael: Any song about my son has to be about Debbie as well.

May 29 1997

Michael arrives in Bremen ( Germany ) with Tarak Ben Ammar and they attend a press conference.

Prince Michael Jr is taken to a Paris hotel suit with his nannies so that his daddy can join him after each concert of the European tour. Debbie also flies every week end to spend time with Michael & their son.

Jun 22, 1997

*So What’s new on the Michael Jackson/Debbie Rowe front? Mr. and Mrs. “King of Pop” are currently on a weeklong rendezvous in some secluded European hideaway – a country known for its divine chocolate. (We can say no more!) They are actively performing their martial duties, in hopes of bringing forth another little Jackson. I hear that Michael “just loves” these romantic vacations with his wife.

I also hear that Debbie intends to slap several of the supermarket tabs with lawsuits, demanding retractions on their stories about her relationship with Michael.

And finally, a source close to Jackson sends word that Debbie wishes I wouldn’t “decry” Michael so much Gee, I think we’ve been kinder to Michael Jackson than anybody else in the press. I always, always emphasize that no matter what rumors swirl, Michael has never been found guilty of any crime. Just the other day I reported how well his ” Blood on the Dance Floor” album is doing in Europe. But I was also duty-bound to report that it has flopped in the United States.That’s not “decrying” Michael, just telling the truth.

June 27 and 29 1997

Concerts at the Pard Des Princes in Paris (attended by Debbie)