Comments (0)Michael Jackson
Startin’ Somethin’?
June 26, 2009
Wouldn’t you know that there’s a Jewish angle to the Michael Jackson saga? (Besides all of the lawyers.) Turns out the late King of Pop’s ex-wife, Debbie Rowe, is a member of the tribe.
Who knew? (Maybe not even Michael.)
Reports continue to float out there that Ms. Rowe, 50, an L.A. native, and the Gloved One’s family are tangling over who will gain custody of the offspring that resulted from Debbie and Michael’s short and terribly odd union, Prince Michael Joseph Jackson Jr., 12, and Paris Michael Katherine Jackson, 11.
Ms. Rowe says she will not battle the Jackson clan’s matriarch, Katherine, over custody. “I know I will never see them again,” Ms. Rowe told Britain’s News of the World, alluding to her kids. “I was never cut out to be a mother—I was no good.”
But hold on: Ms. Rowe’s lawyer, Iris Finsilver, recently told the Associated Press that the ex-dermatological nurse will likely seek custody.
What’s the deal?
Debbie and Michael met in the ‘80s when Jackson attended the clinic of skin specialist Dr. Arnold W. Klein. They married in ’96, not long after the superstar’s marriage to Lisa Marie Presley ended.
But Ms. Rowe insists that she and Jackson never consummated their relationship. She says she was impregnated with sperm from an anonymous donor. “I was just the vessel,” she said. “It wasn’t Michael’s sperm. … I got paid for it, and I’ve moved on. It’s just like I impregnate my mares for breeding. It was very technical.
“I was comfortable with him. I offered him my womb. We were close enough that I knew I could offer him that, so I did. It was a gift.”
Their relationship ended, according to Ms. Rowe, when she couldn’t have kids anymore.
“He didn’t want anything to do with me. He took the kids,” she said. “The settlement was written up, and he just wanted me to be quiet.”
In ’99, Ms. Rowe signed a contract waiving her parental rights after she and Jacko split up. She later contested the contract, one of her reasons being that she feared her kids (who are Jewish according to Jewish law) were exposed to Nation of Islam teachings through their Rwandan nanny and some of Michael’s sibs, including Jermaine. (Not that we love the Jew-hating NOI, but those were her biggest fears about what her kids were exposed to?!)
An appeals court ruled in Ms. Rowe’s favor in ‘06, but the custody battle was eventually settled out of court. (Natch.)
So two of Michael Jackson’s alleged kids are Yids? How appropriately bizarre for a man who once had to publicly apologize for being caught on tape calling Jews “leeches.”
Meanwhile, the mother of Jackson’s third child, Prince Michael Jackson II (aka, “The Dangled One”), 7, has never been identified. (Our money is on Fran Drescher.)