Michael Jackson thought his face was disfigured, Debbie Rowe says

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Michael Jackson fans from left, Karlene Taylor, Yvonne Francis, Latrenda White and Jamie Lee, speak out against AEG Live. A jury found Wednesday that AEG Live was not liable in the death of the pop superstar. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

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Jury foreman Gregg Barden, center, listens to a reporter’s question about their verdict in the civil trial over the wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Katherine Jackson and three grandchildren against AEG Live in the death of singer Michael Jackson. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

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Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Yvette M. Palazuelos gathers the verdict documents moments before they were publicly disclosed. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

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Attorneys for Katherine Jackson, Deborah Chang, left and Kevin Boyle listen as jurors are polled following the verdict in the civil trial that lasted for five months. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

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AEG attorney Marvin Putnam smiles during verdict polling at the conclusion of the Katherine Jackson v. AEG Live civil trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The jury found AEG not liable in Michael Jackson’s death. AEG attorney Jessica Stebbins Bina is at left. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

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Brian Panish, left, attorney for the Michael Jackson family, speaks with Kathryn Cahan and Marvin Putnam, attorneys with AEG Live LLC ,in Los Angeles County Superior Court in the Michael Jackson wrongful-death trial Thursday in downtown Los Angeles. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

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Bailiffs are sworn in to protect the jury as Brian Panish, attorney for the Michael Jackson family, waits during the trial in the Michael Jackson wrongful-death lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Thursday. The singer’s family has sued the entertainment firm AEG Live LLC, saying the company negligently hired and supervised Conrad Murray, the doctor who administered the dose of propofol that killed the singer. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

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Brian Panish, an attorney for the Michael Jackson family, delivers his closing argument to jurors in a packed courtroom in downtown Los Angeles on Sept. 24. The promoters of Michael Jackson’s last tour were “so excited” about making huge profits that they hired an unfit doctor to care for the star, his family’s lawyer said. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

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Marvin Putnam, lead attorney for AEG Live LLC and co-counsel Jessica Stebbins-Bina, listen to closing arguments by Michael Jackson family’s attorney, Brian Panish, in a packed courtroom Sept. 24. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

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Brian Panish, attorney for the Michael Jackson family, delivers his closing argument to jurors in the Michael Jackson wrongful-death lawsuit against concert promoter AEG Live LLC on Sept. 24. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

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AEG attorney Marvin Putnam gives closing arguments in the Michael Jackson wrongful-death case on Sept. 25. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

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Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Yvette M. Palazuelos listens to a rebuttal argument in the Michael Jackson wrongful-death case on Sept. 26. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

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Debbie Rowe, Michael Jackson’s former wife and mother of two of his children, leaves Los Angeles County Superior Court after testifying at the trial in the wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Jackson’s mother, Katherine Jackson, against AEG Live. (Nick Ut / Associated Press)

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Television crews report live outside Los Angeles County Superior Court in downtown Los Angeles on the first day of the trial in the wrongful-death lawsuit. (Joe Klamar / AFP/Getty Images)

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In this file photo dated Sept. 27, 2011, Michael Jackson’s mother Katherine Jackson arrives outside Los Angeles County Superior Court to hear opening statement in the involuntary manslaughter trial of pop superstar Michael Jackson’s personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray. Murray was convicted and sentenced to prison. (Robyn Beck / AFP/Getty Images)

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Singer Janet Jackson, left, Paris Katherine Jackson, Prince Michael Jackson II and LaToya Jackson are seen on stage during the memorial service for Michael Jackson at Staples Center in Los Angeles on July 7, 2009. (Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)

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Entertainer Michael Jackson announces on March 5, 2009, that he will play a series of comeback concerts at the London O2 Arena in July. Jackson died before the concerts could be held. (Joel Ryan / Associated Press)

By Jeff Gottlieb and Kate Mather

Aug. 15, 2013 6:42 PM PT

After 3 1/2 months of sometimes tedious testimony from medical experts and accountants, the Michael Jackson wrongful-death trial took a deeply personal turn this week as the singer’s ex-wife provided emotional testimony about his eccentric life and struggles.

Debbie Rowe elicited several laughs from the jurors, telling an attorney to “relax,” and broke into tears on occasion. She said the King of Pop suffered chronic pain and thought of himself as “Elephant Man” because of a skin condition.

She told how she and Jackson were watching “To Kill a Mockingbird” one night when they had a question. They called Gregory Peck, the star of the film and a friend of Jackson’s, to see if he could help.

She told jurors how she met Jackson while working as an assistant to his dermatologist, Dr. Arnold Klein, and how she became his confidante and then the mother of his two oldest children.

Rowe said the singer was devastated by his earlier divorce from Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis’ daughter.
She testified that after the split, she asked him, “‘What’s the thing that makes you the saddest?’ He said, ‘I never had any children.’ ”

Rowe told him, “Let me have a baby with you. You can have the joy of being a parent.”
She said Jackson thought about it for a couple of weeks before agreeing.

Deborah Chang, an attorney for Jackson’s family, showed jurors a photo of Rowe, riding her Harley with Michael on the back, still in makeup while shooting his “Ghost” video at Van Nuys Airport. The day it was taken, Rowe said, she told the singer she needed to talk to him alone, without the ubiquitous film crew that followed him.

“You’re going to be a dad,” she told him. “He ran around the tarmac screaming.”
She did not say how the child was conceived.

“I believe there are certain people who need to be parents, and I always thought he was one of them,” she said.

She said that when Jackson went on tour during her pregnancy with Prince, he left behind two cassettes. “Every night while I was reading my horror books, I had my headset over my stomach so the baby could hear his voice,” she said.

When the couple divorced after three years of marriage, Rowe gave up her parental rights, a decision she said she never has regretted.

“I didn’t sign on to be a mom,” she said. “I loved him very much, and I still do. I wanted him to be a father. I wanted him to have everything he didn’t have growing up. I wanted him to experience it with his own children.”

Attorneys for AEG Live, which called Rowe as a witness, did not ask her how she squared her testimony with her attempt to regain her rights after her ex-husband was charged with child molestation.

Jackson’s mother and three children are suing AEG, saying the concert promoter and producer negligently supervised and hired Conrad Murray, the doctor who gave Jackson the fatal dose of the anesthetic propofol. AEG says the singer hired Murray and that any money the company was supposed to pay the doctor was an advance to Jackson.

Asked about her relationship with 16-year-old Prince, who attends a private high school in the San Fernando Valley, Rowe shrugged. “We don’t hate each other, if that’s what you mean,” she said. “I’m closer to my daughter.”

Rowe said that she and Paris, 15, talk on the phone and text frequently and that her daughter stays with her on weekends.

Rowe, who raises quarter horses in Palmdale, sobbed as she explained how Jackson’s death affected her daughter, who attempted suicide in June.

“She is devastated,” Rowe sobbed. “She tried to kill herself. … She doesn’t feel like she has a life any more.”

Rowe said her ex-husband suffered from vitiligo, a disease more common in African Americans in which portions of the skin lose pigment. As the disease grew worse, he decided to “depigment” his skin because he couldn’t find decent makeup.

“Everybody says he bleached himself, which he didn’t,” Rowe said.

She said Jackson also suffered from discoid lupus and keloids resulting from serious burns on his scalp sustained during the 1984 filming of a Pepsi commercial, which led him to take pain medication that he became addicted to.

She said that he didn’t doctor-shop for drugs but that she once asked Dr. Klein in the late 1980s or early 1990s if Jackson was addicted to propofol because of the number of times he was using it for medical procedures. She said Klein told her propofol was not addictive.

Rowe also gave jurors her version of medical care in the U.S. “The very rich, very poor and the very famous get the worst medical care,” she said.”The very rich can buy it, the very poor can’t get any and the very famous can dictate it.”

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