This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Top Stories
Jackson’s mother gets custody of Jacko’s kids
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 31 July 2009
A lawyer for Katherine Jackson has told CBS News that she will get custody of her late son’s three children, Prince Michael, Paris and Blanket.
As previously reported, Michael Jackson awarded custody of his kids to his mother in his will, but out of court discussions have been going on between the Jackson clan and the singer’s ex-wife Debbie Rowe, the mother, in one way or another, of the eldest two children. It was never clear if Rowe really wanted to apply for custody of Prince Michael and Paris – there were conflicting reports – but it did look at one point like she might make certain demands at a planned court hearing on the issue.
But that court hearing was twice postponed to allow more discussions between Mrs Jackson and Rowe, and according to legal man Londell McMillan when the custody hearing finally takes place next week both sides will tell the judge they have agreed to honour Jacko’s wishes.
Asked if cash would change hands as part of the arrangement, McMillan told the TV network: “It’s an agreement, an agreement for the best interests of the children. This is not a money deal – this is not about money. All of the parties are resolved – there is no situation better for these children than for them to be raised and reared in the loving care of Mrs Katherine Jackson”.
As previously reported, Rowe gave up all custody rights to the couple’s two children when they divorced in 2000, but later sought to alter that arrangement. A second agreement was reached in secret in 2006. Although Rowe had given up custody rights in the past, that may not have stopped her from seeking custody through the courts now – though TMZ claimed Rowe wasn’t actually Prince Michael and Paris’ biological mother, and had just been a surrogate who took another woman’s eggs. It’s not clear whether that is true and if so what impact it would have on any custody claim. But as it turns out, we’re unlikely to now find out.
Elsewhere in Jackson offspring news, Joe Jackson has confirmed that Omer Bhatti is another of Michael’s children, even though Bhatti himself denied that fact earlier this week.
As previously reported, it has been speculated that 25 year old the Norwegian-born Bhatti was fathered by Jackson during a one night stand in 1984. The speculation stemmed mainly from Bhatti being given a front row seat at the late king of pop’s big memorial show in LA, though gossipers said that the fact Bhatti was Jackson’s son was no secret, and Bhatti had spent many Christmases with his father at Neverland.
Now Jackson Senior has seemingly confirmed those rumours, telling News One: “I knew he had another son, yes I did. He looks like a Jackson, he acts like a Jackson, he can dance like a Jackson”.
So there you have it. Though this is despite the Mirror quoting Bhatti himself earlier this week as saying: “Michael is not my father. He and I were just very, very close. He was my best friend. Michael always used to say I was like a son to him. But my true parents are here in Norway. The reason I was asked to sit with his family at the memorial service is because I was Michael’s closest friend – not because I am his son”.
