She was briefly married to one of the most famous men on the planet, Michael Jackson.
But these days, Debbie Rowe lives a quiet life out of the spotlight following their highly publicised divorce more than two decades ago.
On Monday, she looked completely unrecognisable as she was spotted on a rare outing in Palmdale, California.
In photos exclusively obtained by the Daily Mail, Debbie was pictured dropping by a bank branch as she ran errands around the city, hot on the heels of the blockbuster release of the biopic Michael.
At 67, Rowe looked strikingly different from how she did when she was regularly in the spotlight around the time of her 1996 marriage to Michael.
Yet recently, interest in Debbie has surged following the release of Michael – a biopic charting the pop star’s life from childhood to his first solo tour, the Bad World Tour in 1988.
With the film smashing box office records, Lionsgate have greenlit a sequel, suggesting Debbie may be portrayed while the film illustrates his later years.
Yet it remains to be seen if Debbie will participate in the production of Michael 2, given her children’s polarised views on the matter.
While her son Prince, 29, has supported the biopic, her daughter Paris, 28, has been outspoken in her criticism of the movie.
Paris is also said to be struggling with the fact she now believes the allegations against her late father after growing close to family of alleged victims. You can read more about that here.
Inside Michael Jackson’s ex-wife Debbie Rowe’s reclusive life in Palmdale following their high-profile divorce as former nurse, 67, is spotted on a rare outing after King of Pop’s biopic
Michael met Debbie when she was working as an assistant to his dermatologist Arnold Klein, shortly after his divorce from Lisa Marie; pictured together in 1996
She and the pop music icon – who died in 2009 at just 50 – welcomed two children together, 29-year-old Prince and 28-year-old Paris (Prince pictured right with Paris in the middle, and Michael’s youngest child Bigi left, who was born via a surrogate pictured together)
The last time Debbie spoke in public was in 2022, when she appeared in a TMZ documentary and admitted she felt ‘partly to blame’ for Michael’s death.
Michael died aged 50 in 2009 following a drug-induced cardiac arrest at his home in Los Angeles and his personal physician at the time, Dr Conrad Murray, was jailed for involuntary manslaughter.
In TMZ investigation, Who Really Killed Michael Jackson, Debbie wept as she admitted she regrets not doing more to help Jackson when he became addicted to painkillers.
She said: ‘I was basically as bad as him [Klein] and I am so sorry I participated in it.’
Debbie’s comments were said to have ‘dumbfounded’ Michael’s family at the time, with sources claiming she had ‘never’ spoken with some of the Jackson family about the star since his death.
Michael met Debbie when she was working as an assistant to his dermatologist Arnold Klein, shortly after his divorce from Lisa Marie.
A devoted fan of the singer, Debbie suggested she could bear his children – an account that was later corroborated by Lisa, who told Playboy in 2003 that even during their marriage, Michael was aware the besotted Debbie ‘had a crush on him’ and wanted to have his children.
Debbie was the same age as Michael and became his second wife in 1996 in a secretive ceremony in Sydney, only for the pair to divorce four years later in 2000.
She and the pop music icon welcomed two children together, Prince and Paris.
Michael is also father to son Bigi Jackson, 23, who was born via a surrogate in 2002, and his mother has never been identified.
In October of 1999, Debbie filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences and dating their separation to July 15 of that year.
A spokesperson for Michael said at the time that the couple had ‘mutually agreed to end their marriage,’ and they said that the two ‘remain[ed] friends.’
The divorce was finalised in 2000, and Debbie, who had signed a prenuptial agreement with Michael, was paid around $8 million and given a house in Beverly Hills.
After their brief marriage ended, Debbie took a step out of the spotlight and gave up full custody of her children, leaving Paris and her older brother Prince in the care of their father.
Then, in 2001, Debbie renounced her custody of Prince and Paris to Michael.
During the court hearing, she clarified that the difficult decision was not made because she didn’t ‘love’ her children.
‘I do. I think they are adorable,’ she said in court, according to the Los Angeles Times. ‘They’re his kids. They’re his kids. They are not my kids.’
Debbie essentially stepped out of the picture entirely until Paris was a teenager, which is why the American Horror Stories star has said she didn’t even really know she had a mum growing up.
‘When I was really, really young, my mom didn’t exist in my world,’ she told Rolling Stone, recalling that she only started asking questions once she realised ‘a man can’t birth a child.’
Michael met Debbie when she was working as an assistant to his dermatologist Arnold Klein, shortly after his divorce from Lisa Marie (pictured in 1997)
Since her split from the star, Debbie has taken a step back from the spotlight, though in 2022 she appeared in a TMZ documentary where she admitted she felt ‘partly to blame’ for his death
Debbie essentially stepped out of the picture entirely until Paris was a teenager, which is why the American Horror Stories star has said she didn’t even really know she had a mum growing up (pictured in February)
After Michael died when Paris was just 11, she and her brothers went to live with their grandmother Katherine Jackson.
Because Debbie had relinquished her parental rights, there was no overnight reunion – Paris would reconnect with her mom only later as a teen.
And Paris has been frank that their bond grew slowly rather than like a conventional mother‑daughter relationship.
‘It’s cool having her as a friend,’ she said on Red Table Talk, describing their vibe as ‘very chill’ and noting they share interests like a love of country and folk music and even similar looks.
In 2016, Debbie revealed she’d been diagnosed with breast cancer, with the diagnosis leading her to rebuild bridges with her daughter Paris after being estranged for more than a year.
Speaking on Entertainment Tonight at the time, Debbie shared what an incredible support her daughter had been.
‘She’s my rock, she’s amazing,’ she said. ‘She’s been with me the whole time.’
‘She was there. First phone call, [it] took her 30 seconds [to reach out] when she found out,’ Debbie confided.
TMZ reported that the cancer diagnosis pushed the two women to mend fences, years after Paris shut Debbie out of her life and refused to answer her phone calls.
However, in 2017, Paris celebrated her mother Debbie getting her last chemotherapy treatment, proving that bridges between them had finally been rebuilt.
In February, Paris sent fans into a frenzy after sharing a rare glimpse of herself with Debbie.
Paris took to Instagram to give fans a rare peek at her bond with her mum, posting two cozy snaps – a moment that comes amid her ongoing legal battle with the executors of her late father’s estate.
In the photos, the pair look completely at ease, sharing warm smiles, while Paris lets the moment speak for itself with a one-word caption: ‘Lately.’
However, Debbie hasn’t been spotted in the company of her son, and it’s unclear if she and Prince currently have any kind of relationship.
Michael died aged 50 following a drug-induced cardiac arrest in June 2009 at his home in Los Angeles; pictured in 1993
There have also long been rumours that the Michael may not be the biological father of any of his three children.
Debbie previously stated ex-husband Michael impregnated her artificially with his own sperm.
Friends of the late musician’s family believe The Godfather actor Marlon Brando may have donated the sperm used to conceive his third child, Bigi, previously known as Blanket.
‘It has all kicked off within the wider Jackson estate quite recently, with [siblings] Paris and Prince being told of this development,’ a source said.
‘It is all very strange, but the pieces of the puzzle seem to all add up. Everyone is trying to get their heads around it.’
Explosive details emerged earlier this year that suggest another person, linked to Marlon, could in fact be the father. You can find out more here.
Although Debbie is white, their fair skin and Caucasian looks – Prince’s hair was initially blond, while Paris has blue eyes – soon prompted speculation that he was not their biological father.
The idea was strengthened by the farcical lengths Michael took to hide their faces in public behind masks or blankets.
However, the singer – who was born black despite reportedly lightening his skin with bleaching cream due to his vitiligo – insisted he was their biological father in a notorious 2003 interview with Martin Bashir.
‘I used a surrogate mother [for Blanket] and my own sperm cells. I had my own sperm cells in my other two children,’ he said. ‘They are all my children.’
However, in the same year, biologists and geneticists started telling the media that, although it was theoretically possible that Debbie and Michael had produced light-skinned children, the odds were low.
Reports began to circulate that Michael suffered from a low sperm count and had turned to other men – friends he trusted and admired – to provide him with children.
In recent years, Michael’s name was back in the news amid the release of a documentary exploring pedophilia claims against him.
The first part of Leaving Neverland aired on HBO in 2019, focusing on Michael’s accusers James Safechuck and Wade Robson, who say the singer molested them as children at his sprawling estate Neverland Ranch.
Michael’s career was clouded by rumors of pedophilia from the 1990s onward, but after the allegations were taken to court, he was acquitted in 2005.
Those allegations were nowhere to be found in this year’s blockbuster biopic Michael, which conspicuously ends its story shortly before allegations against Jackson first broke in the early ’90s.
The film quickly became the highest-grossing biopic of all time.
However, critics lambasted the fact it did not address the allegations of child abuse, with the ‘sanitised’ film currently one of the worst-rated biopics in recent years on review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes.
After debuting with a paltry 27 percent ‘fresh’ rating on the site (it has since risen to 38 percent), Michael now lags behind the likes of the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown (82 percent), the Robbie Williams biopic Better Man (89 percent), and the Oscar-winning Oppenheimer (93 percent).
The only major biographies it has out performed are the 2024’s critically-panned Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black (35 percent) and Ronald Reagan biopic Reagan, which has just 18 percent.
Michael’s new biopic starring his nephew Jaafar Jackson has been savaged by critics, with the ‘sanitised’ film currently one of the worst-rated biopics in recent years
It isn’t just critics who have turned their nose up at the film but family members, with his daughter Paris, left, and his sister Janet Jackson distancing themselves from the movie
Michael’s sons Blanket and Price were joined by several members of the Jackson family at the premiere earlier in April but Paris was a no-show (L-R) Blanket, Prince, Jackie Jackson, Jermaine Jackson, and Marlon Jackson
Michael has also divided the Jackson family.
At the world premiere in April, Michael’s sons Blanket and Prince were joined by members of the Jackson family, including Jermaine and Randy, yet his daughter Paris and sister Janet’s absences were glaring.
Paris had raised eyebrows when she claimed Michael was ‘dishonest’ and a ‘fantasy,’ while levelling accusations against the two executors of her late father’s estate who are behind the film’s production.
Her legal battle with John Branca and John McClain reached a peak last year when she accused them of financial mismanagement, lack of transparency and wasting estate resources since her father’s death in 2009.
She said it was ‘troubling’ to her that Branca and McClain used estate funds to finance most if not all of the film’s $150million budget, calling it a ‘botched production.’
Criticising the film’s plot, she said that she had ‘moved on’ after producers didn’t address her notes, but said it would ‘pander to a very specific section of my dad’s fandom that still lives in a fantasy.’
She clarified at the time ‘that I wasn’t involved at all’ and disliked biopics in general because in Hollywood there is ‘a lot of inaccuracy and there’s a lot of full-blown lies.’
In response, lawyers for her late father’s estate responded, telling TMZ that Paris’s protests are ‘without merit.’
They added that she and her lawyers ‘seem far more interested in playing media games by making headline-grabbing, yet false, accusations; raising specific “concerns” over issues previously addressed and resolved, and staging tabloid press photo ops strutting into hearings with obvious props.’
Lawyers for Branca and McClain claimed that Paris and her lawyer also ignored an invitation to meet with them.
Michael’s youngest sister Janet, 59, was also scrubbed from the film after refusing to participate.
Speaking at the Los Angeles screening this week, their sister LaToya Jackson said: ‘I wish everybody was in the movie.
‘She [Janet] was asked and she kindly declined so you have to respect her wishes.’
At a Michael screening, La Toya dodged a question about Paris’s comments but noted ‘everybody has their opinion and their choice’.
She added: ‘I think it’s very important that everybody in the family was involved and took part in this to make sure you get it right.
‘A lot of times people think they know the story and they read about things, but when the family’s involved, the family can say yay or nay.’
While Janet has not publicly revealed her thoughts on the movie, TMZ claims that she was ‘very critical’ of the film after watching a private screening with her family.
Page Six then reported that Janet ‘had something negative about almost every scene.
‘The acting, the makeup, how the actors spoke, even how they walked. It was Janet deciding against the room that this movie wasn’t going to meet her approval.’
Director Antoine Fuqua told Variety that it was important for him to involve the Jackson family in the film, saying: ‘You’re telling somebody’s life, you want to make sure that they’re happy.’
He added: ‘I have so much respect and love for Janet, but you know it’s OK. She’s supportive of Jaafar and that’s what matters.’
In regards to his ‘approach’ to the biopic, the director previously said, ‘Just to tell the facts as we know it, about the artist, about the man, about the human being. You know, the good, bad, and the ugly.’
Despite the controversy and the poor reviews, Michael has made history as the highest-grossing biopic of all time.
The movie has soared past the 2018 Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, raking in almost $1billion in worldwide box office earnings.
Michael, which features the King of Pop’s nephew Jaafar Jackson, 29, in the lead role, has made $911.9million worldwide since it hit theaters on April 24, per Deadline.
The 2018 Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody previously held the number one spot with $216.7million earned domestically and $910.8million worldwide, per Billboard.
Michael has the potential to cross the $1billion mark at the worldwide box office, which The Super Mario Galaxy Movie recently accomplished.
It remains to be seen if the sequel will touch upon the allegations of abuse.
Addressing the follow up, Lionsgate’s film chief Adam Fogelson said: ‘We are really excited about the progress we’re making with respect to a second Michael film.
‘All the conversations that we’ve been having with all of the appropriate parties continue to go exceptionally well.
‘I would say that there is a ton of incredibly entertaining Michael Jackson story, and much of the biggest and most popular parts of his music catalog that were not touched upon in the first film.
‘There are so many other events that happened, even in the time frame of the original movie that weren’t touched upon, so we’re very, very confident that we’ve got an incredibly entertaining movie that will appeal once again to a global audience as the pieces come together.’
He also noted that the film might not be chronological, as he teased: ‘We can go forwards and backwards in telling this story.’
