Michael Jackson marriages and children
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American musician Michael Jackson has been married twice and has three children.
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[edit] Lisa Marie Presley
In 1994, Jackson married Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of Elvis Presley; the marriage was severely criticized by the media and lasted less than two years. However, the pair started to meet late 1992 and kept meeting up to at least February 1998, so the whole affair lasted no less than five years. Despite some comments questioning the validity of this union, Presley has always maintained that they both shared a married couple's life during their time together. The separation date on divorce papers was indicated with Sunday, 10 December 1995 - a day when Jackson was still hospitalized after suffering dehydration during rehearsals for his "One Night Only" special at New York's Beacon Theater.
[edit] Debbie Rowe, Prince, and Paris
Jackson married his dermatologist's nurse Debbie Rowe in Richmond, England on 14th November 1996, with whom he has fathered a son, Prince Michael Joseph Jackson, Jr., born 13 Feb 1997 (who publicly goes by the name "Prince"), and a daughter, Paris-Michael Katherine Jackson, born 3 Apr 1998. Jackson and Rowe were divorced in 1999. Rowe later said that she wanted Jackson to have the children as a "gift", which she had offered even while Jackson was married to Presley. She gave up her parental rights to the children, but as of 2005, a family court case is under way regarding visitation. The godparents of the two children are Macaulay Culkin and Elizabeth Taylor.
[edit] Blanket
Around February 2002, Jackson claimed another son, the newborn Michael Joseph Jackson III, called both "Prince Michael II" and "Blanket", apparently with a surrogate mother whose identity has not been disclosed. In late 2002, Jackson stirred up controversy while staying at the Adlon hotel in Berlin, by briefly suspending him over the edge of a balcony in an incident dubbed the "baby dangling" incident. Jackson defended his actions, saying that he held the child very tightly though he had issued an apology in a public statement made a few days afterwards saying he was "caught in the moment (of fans cheering)". Jackson's children are veiled or masked when they appear in public with him, which he describes as a security measure. Rowe said it was her idea from the beginning as they had been sent many death threats in the past; however, in a recent interview, Jackson said that he would love to take his children onstage one day so his fans can see his children's faces. In December 2005, Debbie Rowe alleged that Michael Jackson had abducted her children and that she was filing a law suit to try and get them back. This case is still in progress. In September 2006, Jackson was ordered to pay £32,000 to Rowe in legal fees. Deborah Rowe had sought $195,000 (£103,000) but Superior Court Judge Robert A Schnider declined, noting she had been due an $8m divorce settlement.
[edit] Biological parentage of the children
After the children were seen in Martin Bashir's Living with Michael Jackson documentary special, many in the press and the public questioned whether Prince and Paris were actually Jackson's biological children, as they had no noticeable African features about them. Jackson explained that his own father is African-American, but has blue eyes, and that some of the Jackson family ancestors are Caucasian, and even Indian. Deborah Rowe, mother of the first two children, is Caucasian and part Jewish. However, in the beginning of the the interviews for the same special, Jackson states that Blanket's mother is black but later in the interview he also stated that Blanket's mother is white.
[edit] Rumours of Jackson fathering other children
There have been rumors that Jackson was having children by various women. One false claim was made by a woman stating that she was pregnant with quadruplets fathered by Jackson. Jackson had suffered the same problem two decades earlier with a woman claiming Michael was a father of one of her fraternal twins, a story from which his memorable hit "Billie Jean" was derived.
