Jacko, His Rise and Fall: The Social and Sexual History of Michael Jackson (95 page)

One could almost imagine a derisive
hoot coming from Madonna after she
read Rowe's quote: "I have married
and had a baby with a man I will
always love. And I am on top of the
world." Even if those sentiments had
been true, Debbie was slated to slide
off the top of that world very soon.

Michael often insisted on changing
his son's diapers himself. And
although Prince Michael's name was elegant and regal, he nonetheless had to
endure the nickname his father bestowed upon him: Baby Doo-Doo.

"Being called Baby Doo Doo by Dada is the kind of thing that could scar
a kid for life," said writer Marcus Errico in 1997. "We just hope Jacko isn't a
literalist."

Most reports indicate that Michael designated Dr. Klein as the godfather
of his son, with Elizabeth Taylor appointed as his godmother. Other reports
relay that instead of Dr. Klein, Macaulay Culkin had been named as the godfather of Prince Michael.

After Michael named his first son Prince Michael, Jermaine responded
more or less in kind by naming his own son, "Jermajesty."

In 1997, Rowe and Michael released a joint statement to the press that virtually no one believed. It read: "Deborah is adamant about setting the record
straight that Michael is the father of the child [a reference to Prince Michael],
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 divorce."

Whereas in the past Michael had faked illnesses to avoid unpleasantness,
it now became obvious that he wasn't opposed to the use of Prince Michael as
a means of avoiding an engagement. As its date approached, he decided that
he did not want to fly to Modena, Italy, to perform with Luciano Pavarotti at
a charity concert. In a press release that attempted to justify his non-appearance at the event, he claimed that his son "had suffered a seizure and nearly
died." That later turned out to be completely untrue, although Rowe was said
to have "gone into a frenzy" when she heard the news for the first time as it
was broadcast over television.

As Michael was celebrating becoming a father, the press recalled that in
the early 90s Jordie Chandler had been "the apple of Michael's eye."

Meanwhile, Jordie Chandler, having turned seventeen in 1997, was a rich
young man worth millions of dollars in bonds and shares. Reportedly, he frequently dabbled in the stock market with the help of a financial guru, Jeffrey
Hahn, vice president of the Santa Monica Bank. Jordie had even acquired a
partial ownership of the Bank of New York. He'd instructed his financial aides
to buy the Crossroads School when he noticed how much the annual fees
were.

He was known to pop up at ski resorts in Tahoe and Vail, and to depart
spontaneously on scuba-diving trips to The Bahamas and surfing excursions
in Florida.

At the time of the birth of Michael's first child, Jordie was still awaiting
the final installment of Michael's payments to him, due in June of 1999. As
Michael's lawyers had cleverly planned it, that coincided with the date when
Michael could no longer be prosecuted over sex abuse allegations.

Jordie, reportedly, was said to have abandoned watching TV broadcasts
on the day Debbie gave birth to a son. "I can't bear to watch," he said. Instead
he donned a pair of Armani pants and played roller hockey outside his home
with his half-brother, Nikki.

In a surprise move, also in 1997, Michael fired his long-time personal
managers, turning his career over instead to Prince Alwaleed, a member of the
Saudi royal family. He'd met Michael in 1994 at Euro Disney in Paris. With
the prince, Michael established
Kingdom Entertainment as a development vehicle for film projects,
theme parks, hotels, and restaurants.
The prince would also be charged
with the development and organization of Michael's future world tours.
The union of the unlikely pair would
be short lived and not meet its expectations.

MJ with Omar Bhatti

Again through the participation
of an unknown father, another child,
Paris-Michael Katherine Jackson,
was born to Rowe on April 3, 1998 at
the Spalding Medical Clinic in
Beverly Hills. Ironically, when his
son had been born, Michael had rented the VIP floor at Cedars-Sinai and hired ten security guards to protect the security of his son. However, when
Paris came along, she was assigned only one security guard and her room at
Spalding was decidedly modest. Rumors began to circulate that Michael was
"hurting financially," and these stories with specific details would mushroom
in the months ahead.

According to reports at the time, Michael was so eager to take this child
to Neverland that he went to the hospital and removed her at once, even with
placenta still covering her body. He wrapped her in a towel and waited to give
her a bath when he got her home.

One employee reported that when she brought the baby to Michael at
Neverland, she had to pass under life-size mannequins of a Boy and a Girl
Scout. Once inside the room, she saw a large painting of Jesus Christ, with
blonde hair and blue eyes, complete with a Sacred Heart.

Even as late as the birth of his second child, the press was still publishing
ridiculous headlines such as MICHAEL STILL PINES FOR LISA MARIE.
That report may have originated when a maid saw a picture of a pre-school
Lisa Marie with Elvis resting on the pop star's nightstand.

In 2004, J. Randy Taraborrelli, in a revised edition of his biography of
Michael Jackson, The Magic & the Madness, wrote that even though Michael
had remarried, Lisa Marie Presley was "still the one who had his heart."

In a review of the book in England, Howard Turner addressed that assertion. "Yeah, right! Anyone who believes that also believes that we have a fairy
godmother, that Grace Kelly was a virgin, that John Grisham is the world's
greatest writer, that Iraq possessed an arsenal of nuclear bombs, and that
George W. Bush will go down in history as America's greatest president. And,
finally, they also believe that Michael Jackson, unlike the rest of us, never had
a homosexual desire in his life."

In the wake of the birth of two children, Michael was still plagued with
financial difficulties. His family was even worse off.

In 1999 both Janet and Michael came in for unwanted headlines claiming
that the two multi-millionaires were standing by as their own family faced
financial ruin. In March, both Joe and Katherine filed for bankruptcy, claiming debts of nearly $35 million.

Neither Michael nor Janet, according to reports, offered financial assistance. To raise immediate cash, Katherine auctioned off a Rolls-Royce given
to her by Michael. Katherine asked the court to exempt her two mink coats
from being seized. Michael had bailed out his parents in the past, but seemed
immune to helping them out of their latest difficulties. In 1995, he'd already
written Joe and La Toya out of his will.

But as the century came to an end, Michael was reported to be avoiding
bill collectors. He wanted to keep his children from view as well. When seen in public, they were veiled. But in the autumn of 2000, the children were playing in a limousine outside their hotel waiting for their "father" to appear.
Prince Michael stuck his head out the window and was photographed by a
paparazzo. "There's no way in hell that child could have been fathered by
Michael," said a Los Angeles pediatrician off the record. "The kid has light
blond hair and is whiter than the Queen of England. He looks exactly like
Macaulay Culkin at that age."

In a rare statement about his children, Michael said, "I've never had so
much fun in all my life. That's the truth. Because I'm this big kid, and now I
get to see the world through the eyes of the really young ones. I learn more
from them than they learn from me. Children are always the best judges to
monitor something."

In the future, Michael would provide a devastating look into his private
world and admit sleeping with young boys in Martin Bashir's now notorious
TV documentary, aired in 2003. In that future expose of his private life, he
would claim that the two children born to Rowe were biologically his. Both
children have white skin and light complexions. Michael's claim on TV would
be met with derision in the press.

In legal papers filed later, Rowe claimed that she'd agreed to refrain from
sex for six months to "avoid any possibility of semen being introduced into
my body other than by way of surgical artificial insemination."

It was reported that Dr. Hal Danzer, a Beverly Hills specialist, performed
the insemination which led to the births of both of the Rowe-Jackson children.
Rowe claimed that for her services she received a payoff of $3 million from
Michael.

After contradictory statements in the 1990s, Rowe in 2006 allegedly told
an Irish newspaper that Michael was not the father of their two children,
Prince Michael and Paris. She claimed that both children were conceived
using anonymous semen purchased from a sperm bank. To the Sunday World,
Rowe said, "Michael knows the truth-that he is not the natural father. He has
to come clean. I have no information whatsoever about the identity of the
donor for either child. There was an agreement of confidentiality with the
sperm bank."

Then, to confuse matters even more, Rowe attacked the Sunday World,
denying that she ever gave such an interview. In putting a spin on the situation, her lawyer, Iris Finsilver, declared that Rowe would "never make a press
deal that might risk her visitation rights-she never spoke to any newspaper."
The Sunday World, however, stood by its story.

As could have been predicted, Debbie eventually asked for a divorce, and
she got her wish on October 9, 1999.

In 2006 when Rowe took Michael to court in a custody battle, legal doc uments revealed details of their divorce settlement. According to these documents, Rowe was to be paid $900,000 a year in "hush money" after she split
from Michael. The ex-Mrs. Michael Jackson also picked up a $2.5 million
mansion in Beverly Hills and a lump sum of $4 million.

In her court filing, Rowe said, "I have just been advised by Michael's
inner circle that he is abusing drugs, and I was even given the name of a physician that is prescribing all of Michael's medications, which I fear is dangerous
not only to Michael but also to my children."

Having deserted her small apartment, Rowe had moved into a lavish million-dollar home in Beverly Hills. There was no question where she got the
money to pay for this upgrade in lifestyle.

Despite the fact that her contract called for her to remain married to
Michael for six years, Rowe told her friends, "I can't take it anymore. That's
why I had to file for divorce."

Myung-Ho Lee, Michael's former business manager, claimed that Rowe
had threatened that if Michael didn't pay $10 million as part of their divorce
settlement that she would "spill the beans" on family secrets. Ironically, Rowe
had surrendered her parental rights at the time of the divorce. And later, during Michael's trial for child molestation, Rowe revealed that she had never
met her own children until they were three or four years old. She also revealed
that during that period, she was never presented to her children as their mother, but as "a friend of your Daddy's." Michael later told a friend, "I bought all
rights to my kids."

As the terms of the divorce were released to wire services around the
world, weird speculation arose. The most outlandish rumor was that the former King of Pop had sought help from scientists in the hopes that he could
clone both male and female versions of himself. Reporter Nick Bishop even
speculated that "the two children could even be a kind of Victor/Victoria
experiment in artificial breeding."

While Katherine and nannies minded the children, and while Rowe pined
for "my lost love," videotapes revealed that Michael was entertaining three,
and sometimes four, adolescent boys at Neverland. He filmed these videotapes
himself, always asking the boys to remove their shirts as part of the filming
process.

As a means of settling his divorce payments, and to meet mounting millions in other obligations, Michael borrowed $140 million in a loan from
Union Finance and Investment Corporation.

Myung-Ho Lee arranged the loan, but later sued Michael, charging that
the star failed to fulfill a number of commitments that Michael had made to
him as a reward for having secured those millions. In June of 2003, Michael
settled the lawsuit with Myung-Ho Lee, the terms of which were not divulged.

Lee's lawsuit was one of about a hundred such lawsuits filed over a two
year period during the late 1990s. Marcel Avram, who handled details associated with Michael's tours during the 90s, also sued when the star cancelled
"Millennium Concerts" in Honolulu and Sydney, respectively.

Avram sued for $25 million, winning his case, but subsequently receiving
only $6 million to make up for lost profits. It was during Michael's testimony
in this trial that photographs of his bandaged nose were splashed in media
around the world. For perhaps the first time, Michael's fans and enemies alike
could witness firsthand the disastrous results of "just one nose job too many."