Jacko, His Rise and Fall: The Social and Sexual History of Michael Jackson (94 page)

"I go around the world dealing with running and hiding. I can't
take a walk in the park. I can't go to the store. I have to hide
in my room. You feel like in prison. "

--Michael Jackson

"I would never do this for money, I did this because I love
him. That's the only reason I did this. "

--Debbie Rowe, wife #2

"How do you square Jackson's preoccupation with childhood
innocence with the pseudomilitary iconography of his
wardrobe and the flashes of violence in his videos? Or the
business savvy that led him to purchase the lucrative song
catalogs of The Beatles and Sly Stone with the gross financial
mismanagement that may soon cost him those catalogs?"

--Toure

"See, we both like to write in private. And now we know why.
'Cause we talk to ourselves. Lines just come zinging out. You
have to have someone who you respect hear you sound stupid. If

--Lionel Richie on writing "We Are The World"

"My friendship with him is the most important thing to me,
and if this marriage gets in the way of that friendship, then
we'll put that marriage aside. "

--Debbie Rowe

"I really screamed at him. Michael, you've got to change your
behavior. Mainly with children, because again, although you
know you are innocent and you are doing nothing to them, it
just doesn't look good. It doesn't look right!"

--Uri Geller

"Who the hell is Debbie Rowe?" Madonna asked a roomful of her
cohorts. One of her hairdressers responded that she was a "motorcycle mama"
and that he'd dated one of her biker boyfriends.

Madonna wasn't alone in asking that question. If news of Michael's marriage to Lisa Marie had electrified the world, the pop star's second marriage
came as a shock, catching the hound dogs of press and paparazzi unaware.

On November 15, 1996, about a year after his divorce from Lisa Marie,
Michael took Debbie Rowe, a nurse, as his second bride. This time the bride
didn't have fame, beauty, or money.

The zaftig blonde, thanks to her role as the assistant to Michael's dermatologist, Dr. Arnold Klein, is credited with "making Michael white."

She had known Michael for fifteen years, and
reportedly is the only woman, other than his mother
Katherine, who ever saw him completely undressed.

Debbie Rowe

Rowe, accompanying Dr. Klein, had flown across
the world to minister to Michael during his tours, and
she had reportedly given him massages and rubdowns.
"I'm familiar with his body, and I can identify any
markings on his buttocks," she said, supporting a
claim that a biopsy of Michael's scalp revealed that he
was suffering from Discoid Lupus, an autoimmune
disease causing hyper-pigmentation, which either
darkened or lightened the skin. If he did indeed suffer
from Discoid Lupus, as Dr. Klein was rumored to
have diagnosed, Michael would have to avoid all
exposure to the sun throughout the rest of his life.
People suffering from Discoid Lupus, especially those
with prolonged exposure to direct sunlight, often develop coin-sized red bumps upon the skin, the surface of these lesions looking "warty."

At the time of his marriage, Michael falsely claimed that "Debbie and I
love each other. I fell for this beautiful, unpretentious, giving person that she
is, and she fell for me."

Her first attempt at childbirth had miscarried, but Rowe was several
months' pregnant when at the age of 37 she married Michael in his suite at the
Sheraton on the Park Hotel in Sydney, Australia, where he was on the second
lap of his HiStory tour. Rowe related stories about romantic evenings, wherein Michael filled her bedroom with exotic fragrances, but technically, those
romantic interludes didn't occur on their wedding night. As the continuation
of a pattern that Michael had established with his first wife, wife number 2
also spent her wedding night alone.

As part of the ceremony, her husband presented her with a 2V2 carat diamond, set into platinum, but all she got from him physically was a peck on the
cheek, not "the big kiss I'd been expecting." As she lay alone in a $3,000-a-
night suite, she cried herself to sleep, or so she said. Later she told friends that
"my honeymoon night was the most disappointing of my life."

Accompanying Michael during his honeymoon was an eight-year-old boy,
his origin unknown, nicknamed "Tony." Michael claimed that the good-looking boy was his nephew, although that wasn't true. While Rowe was confined
to her hotel suite, Michael and Tony were photographed attending the opening night of the film, Ghosts, and also paying a visit to Sydney's Taronga Zoo.

"The marriage and the entire setup
with Debbie Rowe was nothing more than
a sham," Michael's former publicist, Bob
Jones, claimed. "Michael Jackson wasn't
the least bit interested in Debbie Rowe. He
was only interested in her churning out
those blond-haired, blue-eyed babies."
Jones added a provocative comment to the
effect that Michael didn't want to have a
"splaboo," the pop star's standard reference for a black child.

Debbie Rowe with MJ

During their marriage, Michael and
Rowe never lived together.

Nick Bishop, in The National
Enquirer, reported that Rowe had been
"passionately in love" with Michael for 15
years and was his most ardent fan, claim ing that "he broke my heart when he married that Lisa Marie." She reported
that he was distraught when he and Lisa Marie could not have a child and that
she volunteered, "Let me try to get pregnant with you." She also said that
Michael burst into tears of joy, as they went to his bedroom "and started to
make love-he was fantastic, once he got started."

She reported that as a kind of foreplay to their lovemaking, Michael sometimes dressed up, once donning a suit of armor "so he could be a knight conquering a peasant girl. Another time he dressed as a pirate." It cannot be ascertained if these were mere fantasies on Rowe's part, the equivalent of stories of
humans being abducted and then "violated" by aliens aboard space ships.

Bishop reported these fantasies, but as a good reporter he also wrote,
"Few will believe this rigamarole when subsequent events are factored into
the equation. Debbie sounds like an intelligent and well-paid shill, and yet
another sexual beard, but this one was assigned the role of breeder as well."

Privately, associates of Michael said that he wanted to have children of his
own, and that he was "shopping for a breeder," who would agree to be artificially inseminated. He found such a candidate right under his nose: Debbie
Rowe, who originally came from Australia and had formerly been married to
a so-called "computer wiz."

Rowe must have realized at the very beginning that her marriage to
Michael would be a sham. In complaints to her friends back in California, she
was already predicting divorce only weeks after her marriage. Perhaps she
longed for the days when, as a biker chick-comfortable in the seat of a
Harley-Davidson-she rode like a Hell's Angel.

She was said to "curse like a sailor and swill tequila like a Mexican bandit." In the media she's been portrayed as a dumb blonde. Yet others have
called her "cool and calculating, a show-me-the-money type of woman with a
womb for rent if one put millions of dollars on the table."

During her marriage to Michael, Rowe was said to have dated former
biker boyfriends.

In 1996, the year he married Rowe, Michael launched another special
friendship. Omar Bhatti, a young man from Norway but with a Pakistani background, lived intermittently at Neverland. Michael told the staff that Bhatti
was his biological son, but absolutely no one believed him.

The world first heard of Bhatti in 1996 when the 12-year-old amazed
Michael with his talents as an imitator outside his hotel in Tunis in Tunisia.
Bhatti was invited into Michael's suite and a friendship emerged when Bhatti
brought him a beautiful rose. Soon the young boy and Michael were traveling
the world together, with Bhatti on stage performing as "The Mini-Jackson."

The relationship became so close that Bhatti and his family sold their
home in Holmlia, outside Oslo, and moved to Neverland. During the months that followed, Bhatti lived with Michael, whom he proclaimed as "my idol."

The friendship would continue for years. Bhatti was even seen later in
Colorado visiting with Michael and his children, Prince, 7, and Paris, 5. Bhatti
is said to have remained extremely loyal to Michael, and supported him when
he went into drug rehab. Ironically, in 2004, eight years after their initial meeting, the then-20-year-old Bhatti, by now a dance artist in his own right, was
arrested in Oslo for possession of drugs. The arrest occurred only ten days
before he was scheduled to perform at the anti-drug event, Norway Cup, the
world's largest soccer tournament for young people.

Bhatti and two of his teenage friends were visiting Neverland at the time
of its second police raid. In the aftermath of the raid, Bhatti refused to speak
to the press after tabloids ran a front-page photo of Michael and him.

During the raid, Bhatti was questioned by police about Michael's activities. Jeffrey Ellis, a police investigator, later claimed that when he broached
the subject of pornography to Bhatti, the boy "became nervous and seemed to
have trouble forming a sentence. It was almost like a stutter." From Bhatti,
prosecutors got no case. Ellis reported that when the boy was asked about the
consumption of wine and alcohol, referring to Michael's now famous "Jesus
Juice," Bhatti displayed "that same type of uneasiness that I noticed when I
started talking to him about Michael's pornography."

With an unknown father donating the sperm, Prince Michael Jackson was
born on February 13, 1997 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. After delivery,
Michael took the baby from Rowe, because "I don't want you to become too
attached to it." Obviously there had been some agreement between them for
him to do that. Reportedly there was a contract, establishing "ownership" of
the baby and also promising to award her with millions if she stayed married
to him and bore him yet another child.

After the birth of her baby, Rowe was banished from Neverland, showing up soon thereafter on the streets of Phoenix.

Omar Bhatti

Reports of artificial insemination were consistently denied by both Jacksons in spite of surface evidence to the contrary. Gordon Rowe,
grandfather to the children, publicly stated that
his daughter had privately told him that the birth
was by artificial insemination. Rowe allegedly
told friends that "I'm just the vehicle carrying
Michael's babies."

Taken from his mother, the newborn was
deposited into the back seat of a stretch limo and
driven to Neverland, where a professional nurse had been hired to care for the infant.
In the weeks ahead, even though
Michael would hire a bevy of nurses
and nannies to look after the newborn,
he insisted on overseeing most of the
child's care himself.

Omar Bhatti with MJ