Where Is Michael Jackson’s Ex-Wife, Debbie Rowe, 25 Years After Their Divorce?

In the 25 years since she divorced Michael Jackson, Debbie Rowe has remained very much a mystery.

But as a biopic on her late husband — who died at 50 in 2009 — set to be released in April, there’s been renewed interest in the woman who gave birth to two of his children.

The former nurse, 67, now lives a quiet life in Palmdale, California, where she was last spotted in public running errands last April.

She first became friendly with the King of Pop in the 1990s while she was working for his dermatologist.

According to her friend Tanya Boyd, “She would obsess about Michael saying, ‘I’m going to talk to him about opening up more, he’s too inhibited,’” J. Randy Taraborrelli wrote in his 2009 biography, Michael Jackson: The Magic, The Madness, The Whole Story. “She cared about him, would be up all night on the phone with him. She felt that he was sweet and misunderstood and also a rebel.”

They often confided in their unhappy marriages — her husband was a high school teacher, while he was wed to Lisa Marie Presley — and his desperation to have children.

Presley was reluctant to have kids with him, she said in 2010, and they separated in December 1995 — the same month Rowe first became pregnant with Jackson’s child. She miscarried that March, but soon got pregnant again. They wed in November 1996 and she gave birth to Michael Joseph Jr., nicknamed Prince, on February 13, 1997. Daughter Paris arrived on April 3, 1998.

According to Taraborrelli, the children’s nurses and nannies saw her as a surrogate, who “really had no input,” one said, and was rarely around.

In 2000, she and Jackson divorced and she signed over full custody.

“I was just the vessel. It wasn’t Michael’s sperm,” she reportedly told News of the World in 2009. “I got paid for it, and I’ve moved on. I know I will never see my children again.” (Jackson insisted in a 2003 interview with Martin Bashir that he was their biological father.)

Still, when her old friend died nine years later, she felt “partly to blame,” Rowe admitted in a 2022 TMZ documentary, because she had not done more to help him overcome his addiction.

Rowe began spending more time with Paris in 2013, and following another brief estrangement, her daughter supported her when she battled breast cancer in 2016.

“[Paris] is my rock, she’s amazing,” Rowe told Entertainment Tonight at the time. “She’s been with me the whole time. She was there. First phone call, [it] took her 30 seconds [to reach out] when she found out.”

“My badass mom, kickin butt n takin names,” Paris wrote on Instagram, per People, celebrating Rowe’s final chemotherapy treatment. Rowe was spotted at one of her daughter’s performances in 2019, and in a 2021 appearance on Red Table Talk, Paris said they have a “very chill” relationship. “Its just cool having her as a friend,” she said. “I mean like, getting to know her, seeing how similar we are.”