What became of Debbie Rowe, the woman who gave Michael Jackson two children?

BarcelonaThe second Sunday in May was Mother's Day in the United States, and this led to Debbie Rowe returning to our lives. Precisely her, yes. None other than the woman who, in the mid-nineties, was world-famous and about whom we had heard almost nothing since then. A woman who, in the eyes of an entire generation – quite possibly unfairly – is the one who least comes to mind when we think of the concept of mother.

In case someone perhaps no longer remembers who we are talking about, Debbie Rowe is the mother of Michael Jackson's two eldest children, Paris and Prince, two creatures whom official history always made believe she had renounced them in exchange for a fortune of millions and a mansion. In other words, we had always been told that she was a woman who decided that being a mother was something she could stop doing if there was a tsunami of banknotes in return.

Now, however, we have learned that his second offspring, Paris Jackson, has a very different view of Rowe than what they had sold us. So much so that last Sunday she affectionately congratulated her on Mother's Day with a photo of them together on her millionaire Instagram account. The King of Pop's second descendant explicitly sided with the woman who carried her for nine months and who was married between 1996 and 1999 to her father, Michael Jackson. This has great value because we must not lose sight of the fact that Rowe has always been the antichrist for the singer's family. And not only for being the possessor of some uncomfortable truth, but also because she stood up to them in court.

A solitary dissident

Paris's decision to congratulate her mother also stands out for another important reason: it occurs while the spotlight and flashes are more focused than ever on her and her paternal family. Jackson's family has spent months promoting the film Michael, a –pseudo– biopic musical about the inventor of the moonwalk that has generated a lot of controversy since its release. On the one hand, due to poor film reviews, and on the other, because both Paris and her aunt Janet have disowned it. In fact, the two of them, who are among the most famous members of the lineage, have not participated in any promotional events for the film. Furthermore, Paris stated in an interview that the film contains “many inaccuracies and lies” and that her comments about the script were ignored by the rest of the clan.

This dispute in broad daylight with her family over the film and the evident closeness to her mother present Paris as a person who has managed to escape the media prison in which the rest are trapped. A girl who has become a free adult, who acts in accordance with her principles and who wants nothing to do with the spiral of victimized drama in which all the Jacksons are immersed in relation to the figure of the King of Pop, whom they have always applauded uncritically, even though they have never been able to prove that they did so solely out of conviction and not because they lived exclusively off his money. It would not be strange if Paris had observed in her mother a pillar of realism and emotional and mental well-being to cling to amidst the shipwreck that is her family, secularly intoxicated by the most basic interests. A family that has overlooked – if not denied – all sorts of reprehensible conduct to continue living by doing nothing more than holding out their hand.

Happy "mold" day

In fact, their sidereal distance from the approach that the Jacksons have towards Michael Jackson's biography is so great that Paris has gone beyond the screen: she has gone through the entire video game. This was openly demonstrated by the text accompanying the congratulation to her mother. “Happy Mother's Day to the woman they used as a mold during my cloning process,” wrote this 28-year-old young woman in a tone that her family members can interpret as a joke to feel more at ease, but that others will surely read as a raw dose of realism.

Perhaps the moment that marked a turning point for Paris regarding the traditionally told story was the death of Michael Jackson, the last record of Rowe was from 2022, when he participated in a TMZ documentary

What had become of Debbie Rowe?

Debbie Rowe, 67, has lived away from public exposure for more than two decades. Specifically, since she divorced. After selling the Beverly Hills house they gave her to shut her up, she moved to a ranch in Palmdale, a city in California, where she lives with her current partner, music producer Marc Schaffel. In 2016, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, which brought her even closer to her daughter Paris, who had already lost her father prematurely and was still legally under the custody of her paternal grandmother, Katherine Jackson – still alive at 96.

According to the Daily Mail, the last mention of Rowe was in 2022, when she participated in a TMZ documentaryabout Jackson in which she confessed that she felt “partially responsible” for the artist's death because she had not intervened in the singer's addiction to painkillers. Obviously, that appearance did not please her former in-laws at all, who have always looked with great suspicion on anyone who participates in the narrative of the singer's figure. Even among themselves.

Rowe met the King of Pop at the dermatological clinic where he was being treated for vitiligo. They were friends for fifteen years and, after he divorced Elvis Presley's daughter, the now also deceased Lisa Marie Presley, she became his greatest support. Jackson told her that the divorce had delayed his desire to be a father more than ever, a wish that Rowe – a nurse by profession – agreed to. Thirteen months passed between Presley's divorce petition and the birth of Jackson's son.

Two months after Jackson announced he was expecting his first child with the nurse, they married in the strictest privacy in a hotel in Sydney. In 2002, Jackson had his third child, Bigi, through surrogacy, whose mother is unknown

. This child, unfortunately, became famous when the singer presented him to a crowd by holding him out of the window of a hotel in Berlin where he was staying. Jackson's genetic link with his three children has always been a matter that has intrigued the world and has never received any argument from defenders and detractors that would allow this issue to be closed.