In the past few weeks, many of us have found ourselves entrenched in fights about Michael Jackson. Did the media go completely overboard in its coverage? How tortured and soulsick was he? Which is a better Michael Jackson song: "Rock With You" or "Billie Jean"? When it comes to the continuing morality play that is life after Michael Jackson, at least there's one thing everyone seems to agree on: Joe Jackson should not get his creepy mitts on those Jackson children.
According to the New York Post, Debbie Rowe has agreed not to pursue custody of the children, two of whom she gave birth to, as long as Joe stays the hell away. A source is quoted as saying, "The last thing she wanted was for those kids to be looked after by Joe and go through what Michael went through." (It's a concern many of us shared, as expressed in a Broadsheet post by Kate Harding.) If this custody agreement is for real -- and since this is the New York Post (cribbing from London's Sunday Mirror), we'll take it with a grain of salt or 10 -- the children would go to grandmother Katherine, thus sidestepping the nasty court battles that had begun to look depressingly inevitable. Avoiding those seem like one more topic on which we can all agree.
The custody arrangement might have another twist, of course. According to one source, the family had an agreement that Rowe never acknowledge her role as mother and only be referred to as a family friend, "Miss Debbie."
Look, nobody said the story was going to get any less weird.
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