LOS ANGELES – Michael Jackson’s ex-wife acknowledged Thursday that she was concerned that some of his frequent medical visits were motivated more by a desire for drugs than by the treatments he received.
Debbie Rowe testified that she told Jackson about her concerns when he would go to his longtime dermatologist more than once a week in the 1980s and early 1990s.
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Rowe worked in the office of the dermatologist, Dr. Arnold Klein.
“I didn’t understand why he would come in twice in one week,” Rowe said, adding that she was concerned he might be in search of drugs rather than treatments for blemishes with collagen injections.
Rowe has offered a conflicting portrait of Jackson’s medical treatments during her testimony, saying earlier that she never saw him engage in doctor shopping or request specific pain medications. She said many of the visits were legitimately tied to treatments for the skin-lightening condition vitiligo and scars he sustained after being burned during a Pepsi commercial shoot.
Rowe described Jackson as suffering debilitating pain throughout the nearly 20 years that they were close friends. She said her husband trusted his doctors and relied on them to give him proper medication.
“When it came to the pain … it was more begging for relief than anything,” Rowe said. “He respected doctors so he wouldn’t question what they were doing.”
Rowe is the mother of the singer’s two oldest children, Prince and Paris Jackson. She and the pop star were married from 1996 to 1999.
She is testifying in a lawsuit filed by Jackson’s mother against AEG Live LLC, the promoter of Jackson’s ill-fated “This Is It” comeback tour. Katherine Jackson claims that AEG Live failed to properly investigate the doctor later convicted of giving her son an overdose of propofol.
Mellencamp sons charged in attack
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – John Mellencamp’s two teenage sons face battery charges for allegedly punching and kicking a man during a fight that left the victim with serious facial injuries.
Monroe County prosecutors on Thursday charged 19-year-old Hud Mellencamp of Nashville, Ind., and 18-year-old Speck Mellencamp of Bloomington with one count each of battery resulting in serious bodily injury. Ty A. Smith, 19, of Bloomington faces the same charge in the July 29 attack. The Herald-Times reported that Smith is the son of Indiana University baseball coach Tracy Smith and is a walk-on for IU’s football team.
Bloomington police said Thursday that investigators were trying to reach the Mellencamps and Smith to make arrangements for them to surrender.
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