Did Lisa know about the pregnancy? ‘I don’t think Debbie even knew yet,’ observed Monica Pastelle. ‘I think by the time Michael was on his back in the hospital, she was only a couple of weeks’ pregnant. As for Lisa, if she had known, do you think Michael would have been still drawing breath when she left that hospital room?’
It certainly appears either that Michael was a fast worker when he realized his marriage was in trouble or that he had a master plan to father a child, once and for all, which did not involve his wife. Some have said that Michael and Debbie were intimate. Others have said Debbie is ‘not his type’ and insist that they underwent the process of artificial insemination shortly before Michael ended up in the hospital. Since no one who knows them well enough to be privy to such information wants to discuss it, Debbie’s pregnancy remains one of Michael’s most sensitive secrets. ‘I can only tell you that I did not discuss it with him,’ said one of his advisers. ‘I did not want any more information about any of it.’
When Michael was released from the hospital after a week, he went off to Euro-Disney in France to recuperate. He must have had at least a half-dozen children with him, judging from photographs taken on his vacation.
On 18 January 1996, I appeared on CNN to announce that Lisa Marie Presley had filed for divorce from Michael Jackson. In her petition, she noted the ‘Date of Separation’ as 10 December 1995, just after she saw Michael in the hospital. ‘This person is one of the biggest entertainers out there,’ Lisa told Newsweek in 2003. ‘He is not stupid. He’s very charming when he wants to be, and when you go into his world you step into this whole other realm. I could tell you all about the craziness – all these things that were odd, different, evil or not cool – but it still took me two and a half years to get my head out of it.’
In March 1996, Debbie Rowe suffered a miscarriage. ‘I was just devastated,’ she has said. ‘I thought I would never be able to have a baby, and I really wanted to have his. Michael was there to console me the whole time.’
It’s fascinating, in retrospect, that Debbie’s pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage – as well as her very existence in Michael’s life – had still escaped public scrutiny. It seems incredible that someone of Michael’s celebrity status could be married to one woman and planning a baby with another… and no one in the media would catch on to any of it. How, one wonders, did he manage it? ‘Carefully,’ responded someone in Michael’s camp, only half-kidding. ‘Very carefully.’ Or, perhaps not very well at all, it could be argued… if, in fact, he had a panic attack over it.
Michael’s divorce from Lisa was finalized on 20 August 1996. As part of the settlement, Lisa received ten per cent of royalties from Jackson’s HIStory album. According to the agreement, she was allowed to write a tell-all book about her marriage, if she ever chose to do so; she did not sign a so-called ‘confidentiality agreement’. At the time, though, Lisa just wanted to get on with her life and career. She said that she had great regard for Michael and refused to speak critically of him. She knew that he wasn’t entirely venal… she just didn’t know, at this point, what to think of him. So, she chose to preserve her dignity by keeping sacred their private life together. Seven years later, though, in the spring of 2003, Lisa began to discuss her frustration as Michael’s wife during promotion of her long-anticipated debut album, To Whom It May Concern, on Capitol Records.
Michael was deeply conflicted by the end of his marriage to Lisa, his heart flooded with despair. Never before had he connected with a woman, or maybe even another person, on the level that he had with her. She had been there when he most needed her, during the dark days of allegations and drug abuse. ‘She’s like a force of nature,’ he said of her, ‘always there for me. I don’t know how I’ll be without her.’
He also had a strong sexual connection to her, and that had been a first for him. Previously, he hadn’t been able to open himself up, feel uninhibited and truly, physically intimate with anyone. However, for some reason, he was able to let himself go with Lisa. Who knows why? It’s easy to be sceptical of Michael’s relationship with her, but doing so risks ignoring his obvious humanity. Despite the plastic surgeries and maddening friendships with boys, and all of the rest of the eccentric behaviour that goes into making Michael Jackson such a strange individual, he is still a human being with emotions, feelings and a beating heart – and, somehow, Lisa Marie Presley was the one to truly touch it, to truly affect him. ‘I’m afraid it will never happen for me, again,’ he said at the time. ‘I’m scared to death that it’s over for me, now.’ Indeed, it was difficult for him to let it go.
Michael spent a couple of weeks lamenting what had occurred with Lisa. ‘Lisa said that the part of him that is critical of himself – the beaten child part of him – really kicked in after the divorce was finalized,’ said Monica Pastelle. ‘He wanted to call and talk to his best friend, her. He didn’t want to let go. She needed space, though. She really needed time away from him. She felt that he had really screwed with her mind, and she got sick and her body started breaking down after the divorce. She poured her life into him. Now, she needed to reclaim it for herself. He had a hard time with that.’
In the end, Michael Jackson had no choice but to go on alone. He was a survivor, he told himself. He had music to work on, career commitments – a huge, world tour coming up with a show that, as always, demanded his complete focus. Besides, he and Lisa had different goals in life. He wanted to raise children; she already had two, and had made it clear that she didn’t want any more with him. Michael wasn’t used to waiting for other people to catch up with him and with his goals. When Debbie Rowe said she would have his baby, he jumped at the opportunity. With glacial determination replacing his despondency, he was ready to push onward. That had always been his way; at the age of thirty-eight, he wasn’t going to change.
Debbie is Pregnant
In September 1996, Michael embarked on a new worldwide concert schedule, the HIStory tour, the first leg of which began in Prague, Czech Republic, and would not end until Honolulu, Hawaii, at Aloha Stadium in January 1997. The second leg would begin in Bremen, Germany, in May 1997 and end in Durban, South Africa, in October 1997. During the tour, Michael would perform eighty-two concerts in fifty-eight cities to over 4.5 million fans. It was a gruelling schedule. All told, the HIStory tour visited five continents and thirty-five countries.
A month after the tour began, and just a few months after his divorce was finalized, Michael made headlines again with another bombshell revelation: a woman was carrying his baby. Debbie Rowe was five months’ pregnant, which meant she and Michael had been working on a baby while he was still technically married to Lisa. Debbie later explained, ‘I said, “You deserve to be a father. Let me do this for you. Let me have your baby.” He was surprised, but he said, “Yes. Let’s do it.”’
Debbie’s existence in Michael’s life – and her pregnancy – was finally revealed when she was tricked into discussing it with a ‘friend’ who was surreptitiously tape-recording the conversation. ‘She just didn’t know any better,’ explained Tanya Boyd, one of the neighbours in the Van Nuys apartment complex where she lived at the time. ‘She was an open-hearted girl who never dreamed that there were people out there tape-recording conversations for the tabloids.’
However, there it was, for all to see, on the front page of News of the World (3 November 1996). ‘I’m Having Jacko’s Baby,’ blazed the headline, with individual photographs of Michael and Debbie. She was appalled. ‘Oh, my God, no,’ Debbie said to a friend who was with her when she saw a copy of the publication. ‘Please, tell me it does not say that. It’s my own fault. Look at this thing. Look at it. They’re treating us like freaks!’ Debbie took the newspaper and flung it across the room, angrily. Then, she sank into a chair, buried her face in her hands, and burst into tears. ‘Those bastards,’ she kept said. ‘How can they do this to Michael? He doesn’t deserve it. And he’s going to be so mad at me.’
In truth, the article was fairly
accurate, especially reading it retrospectively. In it, Debbie was quoted as saying that Michael was, indeed, the father of the baby, and that he’d be raising the child without her. She also said, according to what the News of the World reported as being on the tape-recording, that the two had engaged in sexual activity, but that when she did not immediately become pregnant, they decided to try what she said Michael referred to as ‘a foolproof way of doing it’: artificial insemination. She said that the process occurred at the Los Angeles Fertility Institute (on Brighton Way in Beverly Hills). The first time ended in miscarriage, she said. This time, she felt she would carry to full term. The article also said that Debbie would receive about $500,000 from Michael when she delivered the baby.
The revelation was almost as startling – and maybe more so – than the excitement that had resulted from Michael’s surprise nuptials to Lisa Marie Presley. The questions from the media came fast and furiously: who was the expectant mother? What is she to Michael? Why is it that no one had ever heard of her before? It all seemed strange, almost like a publicity stunt.
Debbie’s father, Gordon Rowe – a retired cargo pilot who lived in Cyprus – went on the record to say that the baby was conceived by artificial means at the Los Angeles Fertility Institute.
‘She broke the news to me in a telephone call,’ he said. ‘I only speak to her once in a while, and I knew something was up. She said straight off: “I’m going to have Michael’s child.” After I recovered from the shock, Debbie said, “Come on, it’s not so bad. We had the child by artificial insemination.” I said, “Debbie, why artificial insemination? Isn’t he capable of fathering a child like anyone else?” She laughed and said, “Michael doesn’t do anything like anyone else.” I said to her, “Isn’t this the same man who was charged with child abuse?” She said, “He wasn’t charged with anything, not at all.” Then, she told me, “Dad you have no idea who the real Michael Jackson is. He is the most compassionate person I have ever met in my life. If you could only spend one day with him, you would love him like I do.”’
Gordon had rarely seen Debbie since he and her mom, Barbara, divorced more than twenty years before; he had not been directly involved in her upbringing since the early 1970s. ‘She’s always been a rebel,’ he said of Debbie. ‘Maybe if I’d been more of a father, things would have been different.’ After his comments received worldwide publicity, he issued a general retraction of everything he had said, each and every word. It appeared that Gordon spoke too soon, and that Michael was unhappy about his comments. The pop star soon issued his own statement: ‘The reports speculating that Ms Rowe was artificially inseminated, and that there is any economic relationship, are completely false and irresponsible.’
However, Steve Shmerier, a California computer executive who dated Debbie for six months before her first pregnancy with Michael, insists, ‘Debbie told me she had agreed to try for a baby using artificial insemination as a favour to a friend. No names were mentioned. But with hindsight, you don’t need to be a genius to figure out who she was talking about. She is simply not the maternal type, though. She’s always said she had no interest in having children. The only reason she agreed to do this thing for Michael was the understanding that she would not become a traditional wife.’
Michael could insist that the baby was not the result of artificial insemination, and the public and press could either believe him or not. However, he went a step too far in also claiming that there was no ‘economic relationship’ with Debbie. Such a statement only weakened his credibility about the baby’s conception. After all, who in his right mind would believe that he wasn’t giving Debbie some money? Even the surrogate mother who comes into the picture as a complete stranger is compensated for her services, let alone those who are close friends of fifteen years. Is it logical that Debbie Rowe would have a child for one of the wealthiest entertainers in show business and that he, in return, would not give her even a dime for her trouble?
In fact, according to reliable sources, Debbie has received millions of dollars from Michael over the years, not as payment for her services but as ‘gifts’ to her. When Michael’s former business manager Myung Ho Lee sued him for fourteen million dollars in 2002, among the court papers filed was Michael’s monthly budget, which included ‘payment to Debbie Rowe’ for $1.5 million. Whether she’s getting money from him every month, annually, or per child, she will never have to worry about finances again. Michael arranged for other financial annuities for her, as well as eventually buying her a $1.3 million home in the exclusive Franklin Canyon enclave of Beverly Hills, in the fall of 1997. He and Debbie would never live together.
‘At the time that the story broke, Debbie was supposed to meet him in Australia,’ said Tanya 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.’
Debbie frantically attempted to locate Michael in Sydney to explain to him how she had been deceived by her ‘friend’. However, before she could reach him, he was on the telephone, calling her. Contrary to what Debbie expected, as she recalled it, Michael could not have been more loving and understanding. She now says that it was during that telephone call that she realized that Michael was the man for her. ‘Look, I can understand how this terrible thing happened,’ Michael told Debbie. ‘I’ve been tricked by the media before. Relax. It’ll be okay, I promise.’
‘Debbie so appreciated him,’ said Tanya Boyd. ‘Even though she had obviously created a huge jam, he didn’t blame her for it. That went a long way toward making him a saint in her eyes. She was so relieved, she decided that she would be loyal to him, and once you have Debbie Rowe’s loyalty, you have it for life – unless you screw up, royally.’
‘Focus, Debbie,’ Michael told her. ‘Keep your eye on the goal, which is that you and I have this baby. Of course, the press would find out about it, eventually. I expected it. They have made my life miserable for years.’
Though he tried not to show it to the expectant mother, Michael actually was apprehensive about the news of Debbie’s pregnancy being made public. First of all, would his fans put it all together and realize that he’d been working on having a baby with Debbie before he was even divorced from Lisa? How would that look? (Oddly, it would turn out that much of his public wouldn’t figure it out, or, at least, care.) Not only was he unsure how his fans would take it, he was worried about the reaction of his mother, Katherine.
Indeed, Katherine, still a devout Jehovah’s Witness, was not happy to learn from news broadcasts that her son was fathering a child with a woman to whom he was not married. ‘This reminds me of what Michael’s father did in the seventies,’ Katherine said, privately, speaking of Joh’Vonnie. ‘It broke my heart. I won’t have history repeat itself with Michael. I just won’t have it.’
After the news of Debbie’s pregnancy broke, Katherine tried to reach Michael overseas. It was difficult because of his tight schedule but on the day the pregnancy story broke, Katherine managed to find Debbie, whom she had met on several occasions, at a neighbour’s apartment, where she was hiding out from the stalking media. That neighbour recalled, ‘I picked up the telephone, hoping it was Michael calling for Debbie from Australia, and this woman on the other end 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. Can you help me locate her?” I have no idea how she got my number. I handed Debbie the phone.’
Katherine was, as Debbie’s neighbour put it, ‘sweet as she could have been to her.’ For about thirty minutes, she talked to Debbie about the sanctity of marriage, and about the Jehovah’s Witness faith. Debbie was impressed. In fact, by the time she ended her conversation with Katherine, she had not only agreed that it would be best if she married Michael, she was practically ready to convert.
When Michael found out that Katherine and Debbie had spoken, he probably sensed that his l
ife might be about to change. Indeed, according to one of his associates, when Michael finally spoke to Katherine on the telephone, she asked him to marry ‘that nice girl, Debbie’ and ‘give your child a name, not like your poor, half-sister, Joh’Vonnie.’ Michael had never wanted to repeat the sins of his father, so Katherine perhaps knew how to appeal to him or, as the associate put it, ‘She pushed all the right buttons.’
Michael agreed that he should marry Debbie. ‘It’s definitely the right thing to do,’ he said.
When one reviews the chain of events described by their intimates, it’s interesting that Katherine’s telephone call to Debbie and Michael had such an impact on their future together. Prior to the Jackson matriarch’s involvement, the plan was that Debbie was to have been a ‘surrogate mother’ for Michael – a close friend doing a favour for him by having a baby, which she would then give him to raise. After the birth of the child, Michael intended to issue a statement, and then keep the mother’s identity a secret, in much the same way the identities of most surrogate mothers are protected. A good example of what he and Debbie intended is the way he has handled the identity of the woman who gave birth to his very blond third child, Prince Michael II. We don’t know who she is, other than that she’s not Debbie; Debbie has denied maternity. He has not divulged her name, and he hasn’t married her, either. It wouldn’t have been easy, of course, to keep Debbie’s identity undisclosed, but since he has managed to keep the other woman’s identity out of the press, it obviously can be done. Over the years, Michael had proven that, if he wishes to do so, he can keep secrets about his private life.
However, Debbie’s having confided to a traitorous friend about the pregnancy, the resulting publicity, and then Katherine’s concern, altered Michael’s master plan – and also his life. As a result, he was not only going to be a father, but a husband – again.
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