Debbie Rowe | |
---|---|
Born | Deborah Jeanne Rowe December 6, 1958 Spokane, Washington, U.S. |
Education | Hollywood High School |
Spouses | |
Children | 2, including Paris Jackson [1] |
Deborah Jeanne Rowe (born December 6, 1958) [2] [3] is an American woman known for being the ex-wife of pop musician Michael Jackson, with whom she had two children. [4]
Debbie Rowe was born on December 6, 1958, in Spokane, Washington, to Barbara Chilcutt and Gordon Rowe. Her father divorced her mother a few weeks before her second birthday. She was raised by her mother, a few aunts, and her maternal grandmother. [5]
Rowe married Richard Edelman in 1982 and converted to Judaism. The couple divorced six years later. [6]
Rowe met Michael Jackson while working as an assistant in Arnold Klein's dermatology office, where Jackson was being treated for vitiligo. [7] [6] She recalled that after Jackson's divorce from Lisa Marie Presley in 1996, he was upset that he might never become a father. Rowe, a longtime Jackson fan, proposed to bear his children. [8] In an interview with Playboy , Lisa Marie stated that at the time that she and Jackson were married, she knew that Rowe wanted to have his children and that Rowe had "a crush on him". [9]
Rowe had suffered a miscarriage in 1996 which devastated her. Jackson consoled her throughout the ordeal, and it was announced Rowe was pregnant again in 1996; the two were married on November 15, 1996, in Sydney, Australia. [10]
Rowe had a son, Michael Joseph Jackson Jr. [1] (born February 13, 1997, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles), [11] who was subsequently nicknamed Prince. [12] The next year, she gave birth to daughter Paris Jackson [1] on April 3, 1998, at Spaulding Pain Medical Clinic in Beverly Hills in Los Angeles. [13] Jackson took full responsibility for raising the children. [8] [14]
Rowe, who described herself as a private person and almost never gave interviews, was overwhelmed by the publicity that came with being married to Jackson. [8] The couple divorced in April 2000, and Rowe gave full custody rights of the children to Jackson. [15] Rowe received a US$8 million settlement and a house in Beverly Hills, California. [16] Court documents indicated she had signed a prenuptial agreement and therefore could not obtain an equal division of community property under California law. [17]
In 2001, Rowe went to a private judge to have her parental rights for the two children terminated. [16] In 2004, after Jackson was charged with 10 counts of child abuse, she went to court to have the decision reversed. [18] According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Rowe, who was a convert to Judaism, sought the reversal in part because she feared the nanny and some of Jackson's siblings were exposing the children to teachings of the Nation of Islam. [19] Court documents from 2005 noted that "[b]ecause she is Jewish, Deborah feared the children might be mistreated if Michael continued the association." [20] On the stand, in the 2005 People v. Jackson case, she explained that she had been granted limited visits to her children, for eight hours every 45 days. [21]
In 2005, Rowe sold her Beverly Hills house for $1.3 million and bought a ranch in Palmdale. [22] In 2006, she sued Jackson for one immediate payment of $195,000 and one payment of $50,000 to pursue a child custody case. [18] Jackson was ordered to pay her $60,000 in legal fees. [23]
Following Jackson's death on June 25, 2009, Rowe made statements through her attorney to deny a series of gossip reports, including reports that she was not the children's biological mother [24] [25] and that she was attempting to bargain her parental rights for money. [26]
In July 2009, she filed a lawsuit for defamation and invasion of privacy against a source who handed over alleged private e-mails to the television entertainment news program Extra , [27] and on March 3, 2010, she was successful in the defamation lawsuit. She was awarded $27,000 in damages, although she had sought $500,000. [28]
In August 2009, Rowe reached a settlement with Katherine Jackson, the children's guardian, under which Rowe has rights to supervised visitations. [29]
In April 2014, Rowe announced on Entertainment Tonight that she was engaged to music producer and former Neverland Ranch videographer Marc Schaffel, who worked with Jackson on his 9/11 charity single "What More Can I Give". Schaffel was the sole Jackson employee who was permitted access to visit Rowe following their divorce in 2000 and he assisted Rowe with her health problems. [30]
In 2016, Rowe was diagnosed with breast cancer. [31]
Rowe was portrayed by April Telek in the 2004 film Man in the Mirror: The Michael Jackson Story . [32]
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