Breaking News: The Jackson Kids In Full Detail

Michael Jackson‘s sudden death may give his three beloved children something he could never provide — a chance to be themselves.

At the Michael Jackson memorial Tuesday, the world met – and was deeply moved by – the King of Pop‘s 11-year-old daughter, Paris, who gave an unplanned, emotional tribute to her father.

For most of her life, Paris, and her brothers Prince Michael, 12, and Prince Michael II (a.k.a. “Blanket”), 7, were carefully shrouded from the public eye, often emerging with their father wearing colorful masks. So, who are the Jackson children?

According to family friend Gotham Chopra, the late star’s eldest son Prince is a “fun kid” who “has a lot of energy.” He describes Paris as “very thoughtful, very caring, and very sensitive” and quiet Blanket as “a lot like Michael.”

As PEOPLE reported in 2007, by all accounts, the kids are bright, well-behaved and seemingly well-adjusted. A spokesman from the National Zoo, who accompanied the family on a visit, told PEOPLE at the time, “I was struck by how considerate and nice and normal they all were.” Jackson’s longtime bodyguard Miko Brando recently echoed that sentiment. “They are well-mannered, well-behaved kids,” he said. “They are really level-headed.”

A Normal Dad…

It may seem like a contradiction, given their father’s staggering fame and highly scrutinized lifestyle, but many say that as a father, Jackson was nothing but normal and loving. “There were a few times he brought his kids to work,” says tour dancer Christopher “Kriyss” Grant. “You could tell by the way they looked at him that they adored him.”

Adds Jackson‘s former publicist Raymone Bain: “They were Michael’s first priority.”

The King of Pop devoted his life to creating a fairy-tale Never Neverland for his three young heirs, a world where the reality around them was hidden behind masks or the burly frames of professional bodyguards.

Prince Michael, Paris, and Blanket, have never attended a day of school. They’ve never known a neighborhood friend. They sleep together in the same room. And the only outsiders they know are strangers their father would bring in to entertain them.

Last Christmas Eve, Jackson and his dermatologist, Dr. Arnold Klein, — the suspected father of the two oldest children — arranged for Carrie Fisher to surprise the kids by reprising her role as Princess Leia in “Star Wars” at their rental mansion in Holmby Hills, Calif.

“Michael brought the kids down in their pajamas and said, ‘This is Princess Leia,’ ” said family friend Stephen Price. “They were so excited! She did her famous speech for them — the ‘Help me, Obi-Wan’ speech.”

“They are the greatest kids you’ll ever meet,” Price told Us Weekly of the Jackson kids. “They didn’t act like they had silver spoons in their mouths. They are nice and not Hollywood brats. Paris is very polite, a little reserved. Prince is the most outgoing. And Blanket is a sharp kid, but also pretty quiet. When I asked what he wanted for Christmas, he said, ‘I just want a stuffed animal.’ “

To entertain his kids, Jackson would often take them on midnight shopping sprees in stores specially opened just for them. They hopscotched around the globe from California to Las Vegas to Bahrain to Ireland to New Jersey to Switzerland.

He showered the children with indulgences. In 2007, he shut down parts of the New York, New York Hotel in Las Vegas so he and the kids could play video games and ride the roller coaster. And the kids would show up bleary-eyed at bookshops and toy stores around the world for private shopping sprees at 2 or 3 a.m.

They ate Jackson‘s favorite — KFC — for lunch and dinner.

“Prince I, Paris and Prince II were his life,” Michael‘s longtime pal Dieter Wiesner told Life & Style. “He made breakfast for them — a lot of people don’t know this side of Michael.”

Perhaps best of all from a child’s perspective — no school.

“I’m going to build a computer school on the grounds [of Neverland],” Jackson said in an interview. “How can they go into society? He’s Prince Michael Jackson. She’s Paris Katherine Michael Jackson. It would be too difficult.”

He also fathered by example — and showed them how to take responsibility for themselves, one record producer told Jackson biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli. Prince Michael once spilled popcorn on the studio floor, and the producer bent over to clean up the mess, fearing Jackson would have a diva-like tantrum.

Instead, the megastar apologized.

“He’s my kid. I’ll clean up after him,” Jackson said, according to Taraborrelli.

The producer recalled, “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.”

Jackson did his best to prevent his kids from becoming brats, friends said.

“He wanted them to have a chance at a childhood which he never had,” friend Price recalled. “He wanted to make sure they played, because they are kids first and foremost. He made sure they were taken care of, but he understood the difference between a need and a want. He knew to give them a solid foundation to be good people, and that’s what I saw in these kids: bright, intelligent, good people.”

Others in Jackson‘s inner circle agreed.

“He wasn’t a disciplinarian but he didn’t let the kids run the roost or be spoiled rotten,” Stuart Backerman, a former adviser and publicist for Jackson from 2002 to 2004, told The Post.

He recalled a moment in 2004 when he walked through Neverland‘s kitchen and a 6-year-old Paris spit out her food — drawing a quietly stern reaction from Jackson.

“Michael looked up and told her, ‘We don’t spit out food and we don’t talk badly about other people in this house, and we have good manners,’ ” Backerman recalled.

“It didn’t mean anything to me at the time, but now as I look back, it reminds me what kind of parent he was.”

Jackson insiders say their eccentric father did his best to instill a steely self-confidence in his children.

Jackson‘s 11-year-old daughter, Paris Katherine, exemplified that strength when she took the microphone at his memorial service on Tuesday to say before a crowd of 20,000 — and millions watching worldwide — “Daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine.”

“Without getting over-mushy about it, it might have shown Jackson did a pretty damn good job raising those kids,” Backerman said. “She’s no shrinking violet, this kid, as you saw. She might have been hidden by veils and skulking around because of the privacy issues all these years, but she showed herself to be a maturing preteen girl.”

Still, there was much to be concerned about.

Elvis Presley‘s daughter, Lisa Marie, was Jackson‘s first wife and refused to have his babies.

She said that the King of Pop was too emotionally immature to raise a child. The two were divorced within two years of their marriage.

Prince Michael Joseph and Paris Katherine were born after Jackson‘s second wife, Debbie Rowe, the nurse at his dermatology clinic, was artificially inseminated.

Rowe played no part in the children’s lives, but she has hinted at a custody challenge in the wake of Jackson‘s death.

News reports have said the sperm donor may well have been Klein, Rowe‘s boss who has been oddly close to the children, although he denied those reports yesterday.

“We never saw [Rowe],” a Neverland staffer told Jackson biographer Taraborrelli of life after Prince Michael was born in 1997.

“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. They were kept under constant video surveillance, which was monitored by members of Jackson’s security team.

“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,” Taraborrelli reported.

Another nanny said the air quality in Prince Michael’s room was measured hourly, all utensils were thrown away after every use, and toys were tossed each night to be replaced the next day.

Looking forward…

Prince, Paris and Blanket will continue to be well cared for. “The Jacksons have come together and are really loving the kids,” says Chopra. “Cousins and puppies are [around in] full-force, and the kids are enjoying [it].” And no matter what the public may have thought about Jackson, adds Bain, “his children will be his greatest legacy.”

Next Monday, Judge Mitchell Beckloff of Los Angeles Superior Court will hear Michael‘s mother Katherine Jackson‘s petition for permanent custody of the kids.

Sources: PEOPLE/NY Post

Just In: Prince Michael Jackson II (also known as Blanket) Exposed for the First Time

Blanket Jackson Exposed for the First Time…

Michael Jackson’s number one priority since the very moment each of his three children entered the world was to keep them covered and away from the spotlight that he himself had dealt with from such a young age, thus every jaw inside the Staples Center dropped to the floor on Tuesday as we heard daughter Paris speak for the very first time during her father’s memorial concert.

But that wasn’t the only major insight we had into the life of the Jackson children – we also saw Michael’s youngest, 7-year-old Blanket (who was infamously thrust over a fourth-floor balcony in Germany by his father back in 2002) uncovered for the first time. Wearing a dark suit and yellow tie just like his older brother, 12-year-old Prince Michael, Blanket clutched an MJ doll and joined the Jackson family onstage for the final performance of the show.

For the past twelve years, the singer went to extra-ordinary lengths to protect his kids faces by having them wear odd masks, hoodies and cover-ups. And while a couple of rare photographs revealing Paris and Prince Michael’s faces slipped thru the cracks, baby Blanket (who was born via a surrogate) was never fully exposed.

“Being part of the show was very good therapy for the children. They got to see firsthand what their father meant and the reaction his death has garnered throughout the world,” Jackson’s longtime family friend and biographer Stacy Brown told Tarts. “But I don’t think we can expect to see a lot of them. The Jackson family won’t exploit them and we know Michael wouldn’t want that.”

Check out more photos below…

Source: Via Fox News

Just In: Michael’s Children Will No Longer Be A Secret to the Media

According to AC360°, Judging from the Twitterfall, a lot of fans were reduced to weeping puddles by the words of Paris Jackson. As that young girl stood at the microphone and tried to speak of her love for her father, she was a stark reminder of the simple fact that in the end the King of Pop was also a human being. I watched as the family swept her away from the microphone and hugged her, and heard the audience applaud with praise and sympathy for her courage in a terrible time.

But sadly, there is a legacy of that moment I can not ignore: For the first time, I know exactly what she looks like. I have heard her voice. And millions more…maybe hundreds of millions…did too.

Jackson was certainly not a typical father, and he did some things that defied defense: that horrific baby dangling episode, for example. In addition, there are all those troubling questions about his private conduct that will forever circle his biography like vultures.

But for as long as he was alive he did a pretty good job keeping his children’s faces hidden from the public at large. The masks seemed strange to the point of disconcerting, to be sure, but the alternative could have been worse. So there were the odd snapshots that showed up now and then, but not many, and almost never in the mainstream media.

And now? He has not even been put to rest, and already the hidden children have been paraded before the world. I have no idea whose idea that was, or if it was simply an oversight. I have no idea if Michael Jackson would have objected, although his behavior only a few weeks ago suggests he would have.

What I do know is this: Any hope of them going out for an ice cream cone, or a bike ride, or a visit to an amusement park was complicated before today; but now it is virtually impossible. They will now be met at every corner by fans with cellphone cameras, paparazzi, and curious gazes. In our celebrity crazed culture, the lives of those children just grew immensely more complex and problematic.

Source: AC360°

Wire Talk: Paris Jackson’s Memorial Comments Wasn’t Planned, It Came From The Heart

As the star-studded tribute to the King of Pop concluded, Michael Jackson’s own children, Prince Michael, 12, Paris Katherine, 11, and Prince Michael II (Blanket), 7, took the stage during a group performance of “Heal the World.”

The climactic moment of Tuesday’s Michael Jackson memorial service came when after the song, 11-year-old Paris Jackson gave an impromptu speech from the stage surrounded by the Jackson family. Paris stepped to the mic and spoke through tears: “Ever since I was born, daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine,” she said. “And I just want to say that I love him so much.”

Her aunt Janet Jackson then took her into her arms for a hug before the entire Jackson family left the stage, closing the service that lasted more than two hours. The moving tribute was especially startling because it marked one of the first times Michael’s daughter has ever been heard publicly.

Ken Erlich, the producer of the memorial, has told EW that the moment was in no way planned. “A lot of the show was not scripted,” he says. “A lot of the speakers spoke from their heart. We told them we’d be happy to work with them, but a lot of them — the Smokeys, the Berry Gordys, the people who knew Michael all his life — wanted to speak from the heart, on their own. When [the Paris moment] happened, I had asked the family to come up if they wanted to and say something. I thought, frankly, that we were going to get the brothers and the sisters. This went way beyond that, obviously.”

Erlich also reports that the moment when Usher left the stage to sing “Gone Too Soon” next to Jackson‘s casket was similarly impromptu. “He did that on his own and it was wonderful,” says the producer. “All we had time to do with this show is create the sense of it. The rest of it happened because we allowed it to happen. We didn’t want to get in the way.”

More photos of the kids below…

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Singing to “We Are The World”Above: You notice that Blanket dresses like Michael used to dress, with the high-water pants, white tube socks and penny loafer shoes. Check out the photo I put below to compare.

Prince Michael:

Paris:

Blanket:

Just In: Michael Jackson’s nanny Speaks Out!

In Jackson’s employ for more than a decade, Grace Rwaramba started as an office assistant to the pop star before becoming a nanny to his three children: Prince, now 12; Paris, 11; and Blanket, 7. She was last fired by Michael in December, and claims that when she visited the children in April, she herself had to buy balloons for Paris’s birthday, because Michael was so broke.   “Michael had no idea about money,” Rwaramba says, citing a $1 million offer he received to appear in Japan. “By the time everyone took their share,” she says, “he ended up with $200,000.” In another line she said that routinely had to pump out the singer’s stomach after he’d ingested a dangerous combination of drugs. “I had to pump his stomach many times. He always mixed so much of it,” Rwaramba tells The Times of London, referring to drugs.

“There was one period that it was so bad that I didn’t let the children see him,” she is quoted as saying. “He always ate too little and mixed too much.” “For the record, Grace never pumped Michael’s stomach.She has no idea how she would even do such a thing,” Chopra spiritual teacher, medical doctor and Jackson’s longtime friend. He also says of Rwaramba, “Grace is more than my best friend,I refer to her as my sister.”

Having now arrived in Los Angeles from London, Rwaramba, who is originally from Rwanda,is expected to be interviewed by LAPD detectives investigating Jackson’s death on Thursday, according to People. Rwaramba at one point proposed a famliy drug intervention for Michael in Vegas, and went so far as to contact his mother Katherine and sister Janet for their help with it. But when Michael found out about her efforts, he fired her. “He didn’t want to listen,” she says, “that was one of the times he let me go.”

According to Rwaramba, on Friday, the day after Michael died, his mother Katherine called her from Michael’s Holmby Hills house and asked where he kept his cash. “She said, ‘Grace, the children are crying. They are asking about you. They can’t believe that their father died. Grace, you remember Michael used to hide cash at the house. I am here. Where can it be?” Rwaramba advised looking “at the garbage bags and under the carpets.” Then, said the former nanny, “She said, ‘Grace, where are you? Come. I will pick you up from the airport.’ She sounded so strong. So strong!” Katherine Jackson grandmother announce that she will grow the kids but now Debbie Rowe ex wife wants the kids after she give up the custody for her kids for 8.4 Millions $. “They are not Michael’s children artificially inseminated by an anonymous donor, I never had sex and did not share a bed during the three year marriage.” Money really can change you…

People close to him, his family they will lie about him on interviews for money, so who really cries for him? Who really loved him? Only fans? Money really can change people.

For more about Michael, click here.

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“Who should get the kids? The grandparents, the nanny, the ex-wife, or other and if other who?“

Just In: Michael Jackson at Neverland will not happen

A plan to bury Michael Jackson at his sprawling Neverland Ranch fizzled Wednesday, leaving details about his funeral undecided as another mystery was solved: His newly unveiled will says his mother should raise his children, or failing her, Diana Ross.

The investigation into the singer’s death, meanwhile, deepened late Wednesday when the Drug Enforcement Administration was asked to step in by the Los Angeles Police Department, a law enforcement official in Washington told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation.

The changing funeral circumstances thwarted many Jackson fans who had descended on the estate in the rolling hills near Santa Barbara with the hope of attending a public viewing.

“We’re terribly disappointed,” said Ida Barron, 44, who arrived with her husband Paul Barron, 56, intending to spend several days in a tent.

“We were going to listen to music and watch Michael Jackson DVDs and party all night long, not just to have fun, but in memory of Michael Jackson,” Paul Barron said. “Now we’re going to have to just go home.”

Jackson‘s 7-year-old will, filed Wednesday in a Los Angeles court, gives his entire estate to a family trust and names his 79-year-old mother Katherine and his children as beneficiaries. The will also estimates the current value of his estate at more than $500 million.

Katherine Jackson was appointed their guardian, with entertainer Diana Ross, a longtime friend of Michael Jackson, named successor guardian if something happens to his mother. Ross introduced the Jackson 5 on the Ed Sullivan Show in the late 1960s and was instrumental in launching their career.

Meanwhile, Jackson family spokesman Ken Sunshine said a public memorial was in the works for Jackson but wouldn’t be held at Neverland. In addition, it appeared more likely that a funeral and burial would take place in Los Angeles, a person familiar with the situation told the AP.

But the person, who is not authorized to speak for the family and requested anonymity, said nothing was planned for Neverland, at least through Friday.

The person said billionaire Thomas Barrack, who owns Neverland in a joint venture with Jackson, sought an exemption to bury the singer at the ranch. But the person says it’s a complicated process and it couldn’t be done for a burial this week.

“The family is aware a Neverland burial is not possible. They are expected to make decisions about whatever funeral and memorial service” will take place, the person said.

Heavy construction equipment and workers were seen passing through the wrought-iron gates of Neverland on Tuesday. It wasn’t clear what they were doing. The property is about 120 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

At once a symbol of Jackson’s success and excesses, Neverland — nestled in wine country — became the site of a makeshift memorial after his death.

In Los Angeles, Jackson’s lawyer John Branca and family friend John McClain, a music executive, were named in the will as co-executors of his estate. In a statement, they said the most important element of the will was Jackson‘s steadfast desire that his mother become the legal guardian for his children.

“As we work to carry out Michael’s instructions to safeguard both the future of his children as well as the remarkable legacy he left us as an artist, we ask that all matters involving his estate be handled with the dignity and the respect that Michael and his family deserve,” the statement said.

The will doesn’t name father Joe Jackson to any position of authority in administering the estate.

The executors moved quickly to take control of all of Michael Jackson‘s property, going to court hours after filing the will to challenge a previous ruling that gave Katherine Jackson control of 2,000 items from Neverland.

Paul Gordon Hoffman, an attorney for the executors, told Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff his clients are the proper people to take over Jackson‘s financial affairs. He called Katherine Jackson‘s speed in getting limited power over her son’s property “a race to the courthouse that is frankly improper.”

Judge Beckloff urged attorneys from both sides to try to reach a compromise.

“I would like the family to sit down and try to make this work so that we don’t have a difficult time in court,” the judge said. A hearing on the estate was set for Monday.

The will, dated July 7, 2002, gives the entire estate to the Michael Jackson Family Trust. Details of the trust will not be made public.

The documents said Jackson‘s estate consisted almost entirely of “non-cash, non-liquid assets, including primarily an interest in a catalog of music royalty rights which is currently being administered by Sony ATV, and the interests of various entities.”

Jackson owns a 50 percent stake in the massive Sony-ATV Music Publishing Catalog, which includes music by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, Lady Gaga and the Jonas Brothers.

Jackson was recently in shaky financial health. In the most detailed account yet of the singer’s tangled financial empire, documents obtained by The Associated Press show Jackson claimed to have a net worth of $236.6 million as of March 31, 2007.

Jackson, who died June 25 at age 50, left behind three children: son Michael Joseph Jr., known as Prince Michael, 12; daughter Paris Michael Katherine, 11; and son Prince Michael II, 7. Debbie Rowe was the mother of the two oldest children; the youngest was born to a surrogate mother, who has never been identified.

Katherine Jackson was granted temporary guardianship Monday. A judge held off on requests to control the children’s estates.

Rowe, who was married to Jackson in 1996 and filed for divorce three years later, surrendered her parental rights. An appeals court later found that was done in error, and Rowe and Jackson entered an out-of-court settlement in 2006.

Neither Rowe nor her attorneys have indicated whether she intends to seek custody of the two oldest children.

Source: Yahoo!

Just In: Michael Jackson’s Will Filed!!

Michael Jackson’s Will Filed In Court….

Jackson nominated Diana Ross to serve as children’s guardian if his own mother is unable.

Michael Jackson‘s will was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday (July 1), revealing the late singer’s wishes for his estate and the three children he left behind.

In the will, which was drafted in 2002, Jackson called for family attorney John Branca, accountant Barry Siegel and music executive and long-time friend John McClain, to serve as co-executors of the Michael Jackson Family Trust, an estate established to manage all of the King of Pop’s assets. According to The Associated Press, Jackson estimated his worth at more than $500 million at the time he completed his will. Documents obtained by the AP reveal Jackson‘s estate consisted of “non-cash, non-liquid assets, including primarily an interest in a catalogue of music royalty rights which is currently being administered by Sony ATV, and the interests of various entities.”

The original documents were prepared for Jackson to sign on March 22, 2002, but the pop star — who died unexpectedly last Thursday after suffering from cardiac arrest — didn’t complete the paperwork until July 7, 2002.

In the will, Jackson nominated his mother, Katherine Jackson, to serve as guardian of his three children. On Monday, a judge granted Katherine temporary custody of the children, Prince Michael Joseph Jackson Jr., 12; Paris Michael Katherine Jackson, 11; and Prince Michael Jackson II, 7. In the event Jackson‘s mother was unable or unwilling to care for the children, the singer then called for Diana Ross, an early mentor to Jackson, to be the guardian of his kids.

Debbie Rowe, Jackson‘s ex-wife and the surrogate mother of his first two children, was specifically omitted from the will. The mother of Jackson‘s third child remains unknown.

“I have intentionally omitted to provide for my former wife, Deborah Jean Rowe Jackson,” the will states.

As co-executors of the Michael Jackson Family Trust, Branca, McClain and Siegel have the right to sell or mortgage any property Jackson owns and to invest state funds as necessary. They will probably have their hands full with the host of lawsuits and debt Jackson left behind.

Branca and McClain issued a joint statement to the press earlier today, reiterating Jackson‘s desires for his children to be placed under his mother’s care.

“The most important element of Michael’s will is his unwavering desire that his mother, Katherine, become the legal guardian for his three children,” the statement said. “As we work to carry out Michael’s instructions to safeguard both the future of his children, as well as the remarkable legacy he left us as an artist we ask that all matters involving his estate be handled with the dignity and the respect that Michael and his family deserve.”

According to TMZ, Siegel resigned from his role as executor in 2003.

The will states that if one of the men refuses to serve as co-executor, a replacement does not need to be named. Should all three men decline, together they could nominate a new executor.

There is no mention by Jackson in the will of where or how he wished to be buried.

Source: via MTV