What is Debbie Rowe's Net Worth?
Debbie Rowe is an American nurse who has a net worth of $20 million. Debbie Rowe is a dermatology assistant who is best known for having been married to legendary pop musician Michael Jackson from 1996 to 1999. The pair got divorced amid heated publicity, with Jackson being given full custody of their children Prince Jackson and Paris Jackson. After Jackson was charged with child sexual abuse in 2004, Rowe pursued a series of custody cases to regain access to the children.
Rowe met the late Michael Jackson while working as a nurse in Dr. Arnold Klein's dermatology office, where Jackson was being treated for vitiligo. She recalled that after Jackson's divorce from Lisa Marie Presley in 1996, he was upset at the possibility that he might never become a father. Rowe, a longtime Jackson fan, proposed to bear his children.
It was announced in 1996 that Rowe was pregnant , and the two were later married on November 14, 1996 in Sydney, Australia. It was Rowe's second marriage. Three months after Rowe and Jackson's marriage she gave birth to a son, Michael Joseph Jackson, Jr. (born February 13, 1997), who was subsequently known as Prince. The next year Rowe gave birth to a daughter, Paris-Michael Katherine Jackson. (born April 3, 1998). Jackson took full responsibility for raising the children.
The couple divorced on October 8, 1999, with Rowe giving full custody rights of the children to Jackson. Rowe received an $8 million settlement and a house in Beverly Hills, California. Court documents indicated she had signed a prenuptial agreement and therefore could not obtain an equal division of community property under California law. In 2001, Rowe went to a private judge to have her parental rights for the two children terminated, but in 2004, after Jackson was charged with 10 counts of child abuse, she went to court to have the decision reversed. Following Jackson's death on June 25, 2009, Rowe reached a settlement with Katherine Jackson, the children's guardian, under which she was granted rights to supervised visitations.
Early Life
Debbie Rowe was born on December 6, 1958 in Spokane, Washington to Barbara and Gordon. When Rowe was still a baby, her parents divorced; she was subsequently raised by her mother, aunts, and grandmother. As a teen, she went to Hollywood High School in Los Angeles, California.
First Marriage
Rowe's first marriage was to Richard Edelman, whom she wed in 1982. He was a teacher at her alma mater of Hollywood High School. After getting married, she converted to her husband's Jewish faith. The pair eventually got divorced in 1988.
Beginning of Relationship with Michael Jackson
In the mid 80s, Rowe worked as an assistant to dermatologist Dr. Arnold Klein, who had singer Michael Jackson as one of his clients. Rowe first met Jackson to treat his condition of vitiligo. The two went on to become close friends, with both sharing their stories of unhappy marriage. For a while, Jackson kept this friendship a secret from his wife Lisa Marie Presley. When he was first accused of child sexual abuse, Rowe supported him. Eventually, both Rowe and Jackson divorced their spouses.
Because Presley refused to get pregnant by her husband, Rowe elected to give birth for Jackson. However, her first pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage in early 1996, after Jackson and Presley divorced. Later in the year, Rowe was the subject of intense tabloid publicity when she became pregnant again, with articles claiming that she had been artificially inseminated with Jackson's sperm cells and that she was in a relationship with him for purely economic reasons. Jackson denied all these allegations.
Marriage to Michael Jackson
When Jackson's mother Katherine learned of Rowe's newest pregnancy, the Jackson family matriarch exhorted her son to marry Rowe. She was adamant that he not end up like his father, who had a child out of wedlock during an extramarital affair. Heeding his mother's advice, Jackson married Rowe in late 1996 in Sydney, Australia. The media reaction to the marriage was mostly cynical, with many expressing skepticism over the couple's true feelings for each other.
In February of 1997, Rowe and Jackson had their first child together, Michael Jr.; he soon became better known as Prince. Jackson subsequently took the child to Neverland Ranch. Six weeks after the birth, Rowe met up with Jackson and Prince for a photoshoot at a hotel. She then departed, as she did not want to grow too close to the child she had birthed for Jackson. In lieu of Rowe's maternal presence, Prince was cared for by a retinue of nannies and nurses at Neverland. Rowe gave birth to her second child with Jackson, a daughter named Paris, in April of 1998. Paris went on to become a model, singer, and actress. Rowe has claimed that both of her children were conceived via artificial insemination.
Divorce Settlement and Aftermath
Overwhelmed by the heated publicity that attended her marriage to Jackson, Rowe decided to get divorced. The divorce was ultimately granted in October of 1999. Rowe handed over full custody rights of Prince and Paris to Jackson; she also took home an $8 million settlement and was given a house in Beverly Hills, California. Receiving $8 million in 1999 is the same as receiving around $16 million in today's dollars
A couple of years after the divorce, Rowe visited a private judge to have her parental rights for her two children officially terminated. However, a few years after that, she sought to have the decision reversed on account of Jackson's child sexual abuse charges. In 2005, Rowe sold her Beverly Hills home and purchased a ranch in Palmdale. The following year, she sued Jackson for a total of $145,000 to have her access to her children reinstated.
After Jackson's Passing
After Jackson passed away in the summer of 2009, Rowe filed a defamation and invasion of privacy lawsuit against a source that gave her private emails to the television entertainment newsmagazine show "Extra." She was ultimately awarded $27,000 in damages. A little later in 2009, Rowe agreed to a settlement with Katherine Jackson that allowed her supervised access to her children.
On the television newsmagazine program "Entertainment Tonight" in 2014, Rowe announced that she got engaged to music producer Marc Schaffel, a former employee of Jackson's. The two had known each other for a long time, with Schaffel having helped Rowe through her health struggles following her miscarriage.
Real Estate
Debbie sold the Beverly Hills mansion she received from Jackson as part of their divorce settlement in November 2004 for $1.5 million. That same month she paid $439,000 for a 2+ acre property in Palmdale, California. A horse lover, Debbie's Palmdale house is an equestrian property.
