Michael Jackson's children were banned from looking in mirrors and had their toys thrown away each night. So what kind of father was Jacko?



They met as children and for 40 years he was Michael Jackson's confidant. Now, in an intimate account, J. Randy Taraborrelli writes about the Michael Jackson he knew. He reveals what sort of father Jackson was, and explains the great sadness of his mother, Katherine, who has been granted temporary custody of her grandchildren.

His first wife, Lisa Marie Presley, was firmly convinced that Michael Jackson should not be a father. He was too emotionally immature to raise a child, she concluded.

'I think he needs a parent,' she said. She refused point blank to have his babies. Undaunted, he hooked up with an old friend, Debbie Rowe, a nurse specialising in skin disorders, and she had his children instead, most probably after artificial insemination - although startling reports this week say that neither Debbie nor Michael are actually the biological parents of their two children.

Jackson pictured with son Prince Michael and daughter Paris. His children were reportedly not allowed to look in mirrors or allowed to play with toys for more than a day

When Debbie told her own father, he asked about this method of conception: 'Isn't he capable of fathering a child like anyone else?' She laughed: 'Michael doesn't do anything like anyone else.'

On the insistence of Michael's mother, Katherine, a devout Jehovah's Witness, he and Debbie married after his divorce from Lisa. Six months' pregnant and wearing black, she walked towards him at his suite in a Sydney hotel while he sat at the piano playing 'Here comes the bride'.

He had on a creamy foundation that made his face almost stark white, and extra eyeliner. He wore a hat with one long curl framing each side of his face and fake sideburns. His 'best man' was a new friend named Anthony, whom Michael claimed was his nephew. He was eight years old.

It seemed that Lisa Marie might well have been right, then. Certainly, everything that happened over the next few years seemed to confirm her opinion.

Prince Michael Jackson, Michael's son, was born in hospital in 1997, and together he and Debbie cut the umbilical cord. Then, while she stayed put, Michael rushed the baby off to Neverland, his Disney-style ranch home.



'I have been blessed beyond comprehension,' he announced to the world.



Devoted: Michael longed for children and had his eldest two with second wife Debbie Rowe and son 'Blanket' with an unknown surrogate



Six weeks later, the parents posed proudly for photographs with Prince - but it was the first time Debbie had seen the baby since giving birth, and the whole thing was a set-up.

She was smuggled in for the occasion, given the infant to hold for the cameras - then sent on her way.

She was essentially a surrogate and had no part in bringing him up.

'We never saw her,' one of the Neverland staff reported. 'The baby was cared for by a team of six nannies and six nurses, who worked in shifts so that there were always two nurses and two nannies by his side.

The singer dangles Blanket from a Berlin hotel balcony

'They were kept under constant video surveillance, which was monitored by members of Jackson's security team. The nannies all had special training.

'The day-team did exercise drills with the baby to build up his strength. The night-team read and sang to him. But it was as if he had no mother.'

One nanny said: 'We had to measure the air quality in his room once an hour. When we fed him, all the utensils had to be boiled and were all thrown away after a single use.'

The same went for his toys, which were thrown away each night for sanitary reasons and replaced the next morning.

Though rarely on the scene, Debbie announced nine months after the birth that she was pregnant with a second 'gift' for Michael.



The 'gift' he gave her in return - on top of the millions of dollars he was already paying her - was her own house in Los Angeles, which she moved into with her two pet dogs.

A daughter, Paris Katherine Michael Jackson, was born in April 1998. The following year, Debbie asked for a divorce, to which he consented, no questions asked, with a multi-million-dollar settlement.

Another surrogate was found - her identity was never disclosed - who, in 2002, gave Michael his third child, a boy he named Prince Michael II. He was nicknamed 'Blanket', as in blanketing someone with love and care, Jackson explained.



It was this child who, aged nine months, an over-excited Michael dangled from a hotel balcony, causing an outbreak of speculation around the world about his emotional stability and suitability for fatherhood.

He was embarrassed by what he had done and publicly apologised for his behaviour, saying that he had become caught up 'in the moment'.

His devoted friend Elizabeth Taylor told him not to worry. 'Screw everyone else,' she told him. 'Be proud of how you are bringing up your children. God knows, I am.'

But the public probably felt more in tune with the TV interviewer Martin Bashir, who spent eight months living with Jackson for what turned out to be a not very flattering documentary.

Of the Jackson offspring, Bashir noted: 'The children are restricted. They are over-protected.'

He poses with pregnant wife Debbie Rowe after their wedding, wearing pale foundation and fake sideburns

He branded Michael 'broken, childish and self-obsessed', hardly the picture of the best dad in the world.

But, oddly, that was precisely what Jackson was striving towards - and all because of the child molestation accusations that were levelled at him over his close friendships with young boys. They were the catalyst for change.

'He never spanked them or laid a hand on them. He didn't raise his voice in anger and didn't seem to have to do so .' >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Showbusiness had always been paramount in his life but the allegations against him came close to ruining his career. He was forced to reach within himself to discover what might truly matter to him.

He decided his own children would be his primary concern, and raising them his great passion.

His parents, Joseph and Katherine Jackson, came to Neverland to check in on their grandchildren and to see how Michael was progressing.



Little 'Blanket' seemed content, while the older Prince Michael and Paris were bright, confident, affectionate and considerate. They prayed before meals. They were polite, thoughtful and funny.

Michael got angry if they swore, as they sometimes did, since most of their friends were adults - members of his entourage - rather than other children.

But he never spanked them or laid a hand on them. He didn't raise his voice in anger and didn't seem to have to do so. If one of them acted up, he or she was sent into a corner to cool off.



His children Paris, Prince Michael I and Prince Michael II, aka Blanket, shop with Jacko in LA in April wearing colourful masks



Michael explained that he rationed the youngsters' toys and sent the presents they received as Christmas gifts from his fans to orphanages around the world. He taught them not to refer to any of their toys as 'mine' if friends were over. He wanted them to learn to share.

This was a far cry from his own childhood when, already rich and famous, if he played games with other children, they had to let him win or they were never invited back again.

Significantly, too, for a man who had become dangerously obsessed with his own appearance, he didn't like his children to stand staring into a mirror for too long when getting ready.

'I look great,' young Prince once said as he combed his hair. 'No, you look OK,' Michael corrected him.



Custody: His mother Katherine Jackson is driven out of the Jackson family residence on Tuesday and will take custody of the children

The grandparents could see that all three children openly adored their father. 'If I could spend all my time with Daddy, I would do it,' Prince told Katherine. 'I think he's the best daddy in the whole world.'

Others saw the change that came over Michael Jackson. His eldest son was with him at a recording studio and spilled some popcorn on the floor. A producer - the sort who normally lived in awe of the temperamental superstar - bent over to clean it up, but Michael intervened.

'No, let me,' he said, apologetically. 'He's my kid. I'll clean up after him.'

Then, according to the producer: 'I looked down and there's Michael Jackson on his hands and knees picking up his son's popcorn. I'm not sure you would see Madonna doing that.'

This is not to pretend that the lives of the Jackson Three were perfect. Their very conception had been odd - at their father's behest - and one day they might question why their mothers played such a small part in their lives.

He spent his honeymoon with first wife Lisa Marie Presley at Euro Disney. She believed he was too young to have children



And being made to wear brightly coloured gauze scarves over their faces was disturbing. They must have wondered if they were the only kids on earth wearing masks when it wasn't Halloween.

Out shopping with their father one day, Prince Michael had on a baseball cap and a lavender surgical mask, while Paris wore a red sweater and plaid skirt, with ruby-coloured shoes that resembled Dorothy's from The Wizard Of Oz. Both had Spider Man masks over their faces from the neck up.

In theory, this was to protect them from would-be kidnappers, but such precautions seemed way over the top. It begged the question of whether such costumes were really for the children's sake or an ego-trip for their father - a way for Michael to distinguish himself as the most prominent, sought-after man in the world with the most sought-after kids.

At the very least, he seemed to be imposing his own fears on to them. Certainly, being forced to hide their faces in public may have put his children at risk of becoming antisocial, paranoid adults.

People who came across them out together as a family, all masked up in a museum, say, or a restaurant, noticed their laughter and their fun together, but also that they seemed closed off from their environment, never acknowledging the existence of anyone outside their miniature world.

Did Michael Jackson finally find happiness as a father? On some days, yes, it seemed that way. He had joyous times with them, watching them grow up, being completely involved in their lives.

He gave them what he so longed for himself but never found - love with no strings attached, nothing expected in return, unconditional. But on other days, to the end of his life, he remained one of the walking wounded, a lost boy cowering from an ever-pressing world.

'How can I get past the pain?' he once asked an associate. 'I'm so tired of being controlled by fear and by my own bull****.'

Might his family one day lament their childhoods, just as their father - caught up in showbusiness from the age of four - did his? He anticipated this in a speech he once gave for a children's charity.

He wondered out loud whether his children might come to resent him and the choices he made for them when they were young. 'Why weren't we given a normal childhood like other kids?' they might ask.

He had his answer. 'At that moment, I pray they will give me the benefit of the doubt. That they will say to themselves, our daddy did the best he could, given the unique circumstances he faced.'



Why his mother was so jealous of Elizabeth Taylor

Jackson often turned to Elizabeth Taylor in times of difficulty



Michael Jackson's phenomenal success transformed the life of his mother, Katherine, who is now the custodian of his three children.



He took this humble woman from a small, two-bed house in the grimy steel town of Gary, Indiana, to luxury beyond her imaginings.

An estate in California, servants, mink coats and jewels were her reward for giving birth to a musical legend. But her penance was the heartache that came with all his troubles.

Descended from slaves, she was born into hardship in Alabama. At 18 months, she was struck down with polio and had to wear callipers on her legs until well into her teens.

Aged 80, she still walks with a limp. She was 18 when she met the handsome Joseph Jackson. They were opposites in many ways.



She was soft, he was hard, she was reasonable, he was explosive. Both were musical, and Michael believed he inherited his singing ability from her.

But Joseph would let her down over the years with his many infidelities, which she endured. Then the allegations of child abuse against Michael sent her blood pressure soaring.



She would be the first to speak in his defence, but didn't understand the way he lived and he wouldn't or couldn't explain it. It was even tougher on her when at times he would not see her, preferring to pour out his troubles to Elizabeth Taylor, his surrogate mother.

I remember once visiting Katherine at the family mansion in California. The Cadillacs, Rolls-Royces and Mercedes parked in the driveway indicated that the good times were rolling: 'Maybe the best years of your life?' I asked. 'Not really,' she answered. 'The best years were back in Gary when we had one bedroom for the boys and they all slept together in triple bunk beds. We were so happy, then. 'I'd give up all we have now for just one of those days when life was simpler.'

Extracted from Michael Jackson: The Magic And The Madness by J. Randy Taraborrelli (Pan, £8.99). Randy Taraborrelli. To order a copy, tel: 0845 155 0720.



TOMORROW: Thriller was Jackson's masterpiece - so why did he try to scrap it?

