Statements by Michael’s former wife

Debbie Rowe (the mother of Prince and Paris, Michael’s two children) expressed her anger and distress about the way Michael was portrayed in this program as a father during an exclusive interview with GMTV’s Breakfast TV. She said: "He is an exceptional, lovable, and attentive man. He hasn’t been portrayed the way he really is, and it really makes me furious. No one else can be a better father than Michael, and I deny all the rumors that claim he can’t be a complete father. No one has studied fatherhood as much as he has; no one has experienced the art of being a father like him. You know, fatherhood is an art. They give you the title of parent because you give life to someone, you raise them, but it doesn’t give you the title of father or mother. My children don’t call me ‘mom’ because I don’t want them to. I am their mother, but they belong to Michael. I gave birth to them because I wanted Michael to become a father. I believe there are some people who are worthy of becoming a father or a mother, and he is one of them. He is truly an exceptional man, and he has never left me alone—never, from the very day I saw him. I could have done something for him, and I wanted to. People don’t understand this. They want something traditional... They have this idea of ‘the harder you work, the more invincible you are.’ That wasn’t true in the 1950s, and it isn’t true in the twenty-first century either. We have a non-traditional family, and it’s a shame that this upsets people that they don’t think a little more. We are a united family, because whenever our children need me, I will be there with them. People say, ‘I can’t believe he abandoned his children.’ I didn’t abandon my children. They are with their father, exactly where they should be. I didn’t want to be a mother."