Jacksons – AEG trial DAY 70. DEBBIE ROWE and THE THRILLER OF MICHAEL JACKSON’S LIFE

This post is about the second day of Debbie Rowe’s testimony. But before that here is a short word about the sidebar that took place on the previous day Wednesday, August 14, 2013.

PART 1

VITILIGO AS A SUBJECT FOR A SIDEBAR

Lupus butterfly rash

As we know the AEG lawyers object to every speck of dust in this case, and this time it was the fact that the Plaintiffs wanted to talk about Michael’s Vitiligo. This is what Ms. Chang replied to AEG’s objections:

Ms. Chang: The reason why I am bringing up Vitiligo, Discoid Lupus, the pain and the burns, is to establish the foundation of what they went through together because as a result of the three that happened in this 20’s at the same time as the burn area, the doctors were perplexed on what to do. When they treated the burn, the Discoid Lupus was an issue. When they treated the acne – it was like a chain reaction.

He ended up feeling so badly about himself, he thought he was like the Elephant Man, and the person he could talk to, because he didn’t want to bother his mother because he didn’t want to make her sad, is Debbie Rowe. That is the establishment of this close relationship and what they went through and why they became so close.

Traces of vitiligo left

It also supports where his psyche was, what he had to go through. I don’t know of any other 20-year-old, frankly, or 23, who had to go through all of those things at once, have these procedures and get up and dance every day. And I think that given how they’re trying to present him as, “Oh, he just went in and even –” Botox and Collagen, making him sound superficial and vain like a star. I think we have the right and the duty to put forward what he was actually going through.

Ms.Stebbins: For the record, your honor, I don’t think that — there was plenty of testimony on direct examination about the pain, about the burn, about the difficulties with that. I’m not sure why Michael Jackson’s self-esteem issues are necessarily relevant to this issue. Again, my only concern here is relevance and undue consumption of time. If counsel is going to quickly go through Vitiligo — it’s not — – it just seems somewhat irrelevant and designed to – to bring in – I don’t even know what. Michael Jackson had self-esteem issues seems a bit far afield.

Judge: Overruled. I’m going to allow it.

January 1984. The burn

I agree with Ms.Chang that a rare young man will have to cope with so many maladies falling upon him all at once and still be able to get up and dance every day.

Vitiligo must have been a frightening sight, lupus gave him a red butterfly rash on his face and a thick crust on his head, and the burn left him balding with keloid scars and all the pain coming with it – well, and after all that someone is still wondering why he was shy with girls?

Even to his mother he didn’t want to disclose all those terrible details not to make her worry, not to mention girls whom he didn’t want to disappoint or frighten with his health problems and looks. The poor boy suffered in silence.

He really considered himself disfigured and often cried due to the hopelessness of it, and we can perfectly understand why – even one malady like that would be enough to turn anyone’s life into a nightmare, and he had several of them and all taking place at once.

Debbie Rowe says that the skin on his head was popping when the medication was injected – so can any of us imagine what kind of pain it was if his skin burst at a touch of a syringe?

As to Michael’s choice of Debbie as his wife I think now all questions should fall off by themselves – her profession alone made her a natural companion for him as with this woman he could at least be at his ease – no need to cover up his baldness with a hair piece, no need to be embarrassed about his skin problems, no need to explain what medication he was taking and why.  And her sense of humor and easy approach to things were also a great help – in fact her formula “We may not able to make it perfect, but let’s see what we can do” is admirable and seems to me the best way to handle problems like that.

On the second day of Debbie’s testimony there were lots of questions about Michael’s health again, but the conversation looked much more intimate because she spoke more about their children and also because once we got over the shock of all those medical details we finally regained the ability to notice other things too.

I for example, noticed that their marriage was absolutely real. One of the best types of marriages grow out of friendship, common interests and a good laugh shared by both sides, and Debbie Rowe gave all of it to Michael in abundance.  And even if he was not terribly in love with her he still appreciated her very much. In fact during the lulus fight they had in Mexico during the Dangerous tour she said he was embarrassed that he had disappointed her which is a sure sign that her opinion did matter to him.

And the fact that she “had no filter” as her daughter Paris says was also a great help – in a way it compensated for what he himself could never afford to do. In short it was an interesting relationship and I am very grateful to her that she took so good care of Michael.

The way she was weaning him off the medications those idiots plunged him into is an absolutely model one and I am happy that she engaged herself in an undercover operation with Dr. Metzger to help Michael. She defied all loyalty to her boss and approached Dr. Metzger who seemed to be really the only doctor in MJ’s life who placed Michael’s interests above everything else.

I feel extremely sorry that at this trial this best Michael’s doctor will get the worst treatment from AEG and hope that in retaliation to that the Jacksons’ lawyers will at least not let Gongaware’s good friend Finkelstein get away with what he did. Further research fully confirmed that it was Finkelstein who undermined all the great work done by Dr. Metzger on weaning Michael off narcotic medications and was therefore the ultimate reason why Michael had to cancel the tour and go to a rehab in 1993.

DEBBIE ROWE’S SECOND DAY OF TESTIMONY

Thursday August 15 DAY 70

Debbie Rowe Was back on the stand. Jacksons attorney Deborah Chang resumed cross examination.

Chang asked if traffic was better today. “It’s Palmdale… it was actually worse today,” Rowe responded.

Rowe said you couldn’t look at it and say it was lupus. Then Chang showed picture of black male with vitiligo.

The thing with vitiligo, the color can come and go and if you go on the sun you can get sunburn, Rowe explained.

For Michael, it came and went for a good period of the time. It was easy to cover with make-up, Rowe testified.

Everybody said he bleached himself, but he didn’t, Rowe said.

Rowe: It’s easier go lighter color and try to match with make-up. It’s hard to match dark skin, they don’t make good make-up for dark skin.

Rowe said Michael had come to a point it (vitiligo) was going to stay, it wasn’t going to get any better.

Each time the pigment disappearead, it got bigger and bigger. She said that cause tremendous anxiety in Michael.

Rowe said up until 99 MJ still had issues with it. “Vitiligo is seasonal, it’d come and go. Sometimes it’d be better and sometimes it wouldn’t

Rowe said Dr. Klein tried different treatments, ultimately tried to de-pigment.

You can’t just slap cream around whenever you want, you need to get your skin checked, Rowe said. That’s one of the reasons MJ saw Klein.

MJ is released from the hospital with a fedora covering his wound, 1984

Michael’s burn was very serious, Rowe explained.

Rowe: I didn’t want him to feel as hopeless as he felt. We may not be able to make it perfect, but lets see what we can do.

He was very shy, so for him to have all of these going on and being in public it was very hard, Rowe testified.

Rowe said MJ cried about it, was embarrassed and felt disfigured. He was worried that people would see disfigurement before he would.

He didn’t really trust anyone at all, Rowe explained.

Chang asked if there was a comparison to elephant man. She said yes.

Rowe said Michael didn’t disclose it to his mother. He wanted her to know that he was okay and that she didn’t have to worry about him.

Chang: Did you always make him laugh?

Rowe: Well, that was our relationship.  He was incredibly funny.

Rowe said Michael had a really good sense of humor and they tried to find humor in stuff. And if he was feeling down I’d do something to take his mind off of it, Rowe said. “I apparently have no filter, as my daughter says.”

Chang: Did he appreciate that on you?

Rowe: He did, I think he felt refreshed. Because he couldn’t do it, he was happy I could.

Rowe: He knew that I wanted the best treatment for him, that I wanted him to see the best physicians, that I wanted people to not take advantage of him because he did feel so helpless as a patient.

Rowe said she told MJ he needed to be organized with his medication, get one of those morning, afternoon, evening pill organizer.

Rowe went with Michael to see other physicians. Dr Metzger is an internist and rheumatologist who treats auto-immune diseases, such as lupus. It takes a dermatologist and rheumatologist to treat discoid lupus.

November 1996, the wedding ceremony at the Sheraton hotel, Australia

Q.    Both you and Mr. Jackson liked Dr. Metzger, correct?
A.    Amazing.
Q.    And he later became Mr. Jackson’s general practitioner, correct?
A.    Yes. And he was his best man at our wedding.
Q.    You also not only went with him for those types of treatments which we’ll talk about in a minute but you also even went to Dentists and Oral Surgeons with Mr. Jackson. Is that fair to say?
A.    Yes. 

Chang: And he was almost phobic to needles?

Rowe: Oh, he was phobic.

C: And sometimes you’d have to literally hold his hand?

Rowe: I always did.

Rowe said Michael wanted her to be present in all procedures. She said he always had problems with scar on burn scalp.

Chang: Was Dr. Hoefflin a very prominent plastic surgeon?

Rowe: Yes, and very, very good.

Q.    I think you said that they were scars, but they are lumpy and ugly bumps?

A. And thick. In areas they are linear and elevated. There is other areas where it looks like the skin has been stretched, and so parts of it are bumpy. Parts of it look thin. Some of that happens after the cortisone injections which is a treatment for the Keloids to help them become flat and less painful. 

Q.    And does it happen in every patient after a burn or a serious injury or is there a higher percentage?
A.    Asian skin and black skin are the worst — suffer the worst from trauma.
Q.    Based on your experience in working with Dr. Klein, do you know that they can be extremely painful?
A.    They are.
Q.    And Dr. Klein treated him for these Keloids?
A.    Yes.
Q.    And, again, we’re talking about Keloids on the top of his head, is that correct?
A.    They began mid-scalp and went back to the crown.
Q.    And did part of that treatment necessitate frequent insertion of cortisone injections through needles directly into the painful Keloids?
A.    Yes. Can I explain the difference between a regular injection and with Keloids?
Q.    Yes.
A.    Keloid tissue is very dense.
Q.    Does that mean it’s hard?
A.    Very hard. Very hard. To get the cortisone in — you don’t want to get it around the skin because the regular skin can become atrophic, can thin out. You want to keep it actually in the area itself of the Keloid, the lump of the Keloid. It’s very difficult to get the liquid in there in the beginning until you start to soften the tissue with the cortisone because that’s the idea. And we used what was called — there were two ways to do it, the dermajet, which was like an air gun that would you cock three or four times, place it against the skin, and it would air push it into the scar. There was also another instrument that was used that some Dentists use it. It looks like a gun where they put the cortisone and then he use it to push — the doctor had more leverage to get the medication straight into the lesion. You could hear — you could hear the skin popping when the medication went in, especially the second or third time as the scar tissue was starting to break down.
Q.    Would you agree that this is a painful treatment?
A.    It’s horribly painful.
Q.    And this area was somewhat complicated because not only did he have burn Keloids but he also had his Discoid Lupus in this area, correct?
A.    Right in the middle. Right here.

Rowe: He had such significant scarring, there was no tissue to pull together, so they had to make more skin.  In the area of the burn he could not grow hair.

Q.    As the scars grew, did the area of baldness also grow?
A.    Yes.
Q.    That was terribly upsetting to a young Michael Jackson?
A.    Yes, and to an older Michael Jackson.
Q.    It’s hard for anybody to face that. But when they were on stage and dancing as vigorously as he does, was he concerned about wearing a wig?
A.    He hated it.
Q.    Did he want to find an alternative for that?
A.    Yes.
Q.    And that began a series of surgeries, treatments, and injections?
A.    That was when we called Dr. Sasaki [for stretching his skin procedures which involved baloons filled with saline]

Rowe: What they show here is what happened to Michael. They would put saline every 7-10 days and let it stretch it out.

Chang: It literally expands, stretches the skin?

Rowe: Yes.  It was brutally painful,  It required pain medication.

There are times you cut Keloid and you end up with bigger Keloid, Rowe said. They wanted to have only 1 linear Keloid on MJ’s head to deal with. 

Q.    And did the surgery work?
A.    No, it fell apart.  I think the end of ’96, beginning of ’97.
Q.    He went through all the series, all the pain, and as a result he had even thicker and lumpier and bumpier Keloids?
A.    Yeah, because Discoid Lupus — it didn’t hold together.

Q.    That necessitated those painful injections that you talked about to that even harder and bumpier Keloids, correct?
A.    To try to give relief to the Keloids. Another surgery wasn’t an option.
Q.    Over time, you could flatten the Keloids with the cortisone injections, correct?
A.    Yes.
Q.    But they would grow and irritate?
A.    Sometimes they would grow back. Sometimes the skin would be depressed, and it would be fine. But his Keloids were never completely gone.
Q.    At least in the years that you knew him, they required constant monitoring, so to speak, and treatment with Dr. Klein, correct?
A.    Yes.
Q.    Not only did you go with Mr. Jackson to sit through these surgeries but you also were with him as he recuperated?
A.    Yes.
Q.    Would it be fair to say that you saw firsthand his bouts of pain that he experienced from these procedures?
A.    Yes.
Rowe: I wasn’t assigned to help him recover, I took care of him when he came to see Dr. Klein.

Rowe said, crying, that she went with Michael to other procedures out of love, not because she had to. “Because he was my friend, I wanted to make sure he was ok”. Rowe developed a pain scale to help measure Michael’s pain.

Q. Did you come up with a numerical scale of pain that you used to assess how bad your patient was?
A.    Yes, because it was easier. Instead of saying “How do you feel,” and then ten minutes later saying “Okay, well, how do you feel,” he would — we ran out of descriptions. 
Q.    Okay. So it was easier for you to assess a number?
A.    Yes.
Q.    Was that a numerical scale from 1 to 10?
A.    Yes.
Q.    And was 10 the most severe?
A.    Yes.
Q.    And when you explained to us about a pain cycle, you indicated that — I think you said, if you don’t catch it, then it could quickly escalate until it’s off the scale, and then you really have to do something more extreme, is that correct?
A.    Yes.
Q.    So would you continually monitor Mr. Jackson to see where he was on the pain scale?
A.    Yes.
Q.    What number was it that he started getting scared at?
A.    Three.
Q.    And have you seen him go from a 3 to a 10 rapidly?
A.    Yes. 

NOTE: The transcript of the first part of Debbie’s testimony explained a very important point – the pain had to be intercepted before it reached its peak, because if it was not caught at the right moment it required much stronger medication. This is why Michael was in constant fear of pain and of not being able to catch it on time, and they had to work out a pain scale.

This is when I thought – and what if that pain began to grow on him during a concert? What could he do? The way Debbie describes it the pain was awful:

Q.    Would you agree that during those time periods, he had cold sweats?
A.    Yes.
Q.    He was pale?
A.    Yes.
Q.    He couldn’t think?
A.    When it got to be what I would say would be a 6.
Q.    He couldn’t see?
A.    No. It was like a migraine almost.
Q.    I think you described it before as a blind migraine?
A.    Blind migraine meaning he couldn’t see.
Q.    He couldn’t perform?
A.    He wasn’t performing at the time, no. He couldn’t do anything —
Q.    In that state?
A.    No, he couldn’t.
Q.    In that state, when that pain took over, would you agree it was debilitating and crippling?
A.    Yes.
Q.    And that’s real.
A.    Yes. 

A.    I didn’t want him to not be able to have the medicine that we have and not have it work. I didn’t want it — I didn’t want him to unnecessarily take — like don’t take a Vicodin if you can get away with Motrin because we were using Demerol at the time after the surgery itself. He was on Demerol, I believe, for a week or two right after it and then different lower prescriptions like Percocet. I don’t remember Vicodin. I just used that as an example from Motrin.
Q.    Based on your observations, you saw that he was afraid of the pain?
A.    Yes.
Q.    And during this time period, would you agree, Ms. Rowe, that he had a legitimate need for pain medication?
A.    Yes.
Q.    Would you agree that Michael Jackson wanted to be responsible about pain management?

A.    Yes. 

MJ in Monaco, May 1993, sometime after Dr. Sasaki’s surgery

Q.    Would you agree that he didn’t want to be walking around talking with a slurred voice or looking loopy, but he wanted to focus on his work. Would you agree with that?
A.    Yes. 
Q:    The entire time period you knew him, would you agree he wanted to be able to focus on his work?
A.    He didn’t — when he had had pain medication, we didn’t go out. If he needed pain medication, we stayed in because he was slurring.
Q.    And that’s not how he wanted to be. Would you agree with me?
A.    Correct.
Q.    Would you agree he was a perfectionist in his work?
A.    He was meticulous.
Q.    Would you agree, based on your almost 20 years working with Dr. Klein and working with people who are in pain, that pain management can be a very hard line to balance on?
A.    Yes.
Q.    Would you agree that he did the best he could?
A.    Yes. 

A.    His biggest problem, like I said yesterday, was Dr. Klein and Dr. Hoefflin trying to over prescribe medication.
Q.    And to be clear, that was not at the request of Mr. Jackson, correct?
A.    No.

He did not want pain, Rowe said. She said he had no choice but deal with the doctors.

Rowe: After procedure in 93, MJ went on tour and was doing that part of the tour until Forecast, I met him one time I didn’t know who he was.

NOTE: Another thing I grasped from the previous transcript is that after approximately three weeks of consistent work on reducing drugs following that scalp surgery Debbie, Dr. Metzger and Michael managed to fully replace Demerol with a non-narcotic Toradol. In the days prior to the tour Michael had one quarter of the standard opiate patch on his body, was taking Toradol only and was receiving no injections.  

When Putnam asked if Michael was proud of the progress he had made in getting off drugs, Debbie said that he was not a prideful person (ABC reported the opposite), but as to her she was very relieved to see him doing so well. This is why she was absolutely mad at Forecast when he gave Michael what she thought to be 100 milligrams of Demerol, starting it all over again and ruining all their work.

But this is what Debbie Rowe thinks what happened. She is blaming the arrogant Dr. Forecast for never following Dr. Metzger’s instructions,  and I cannot imagine what she would say if she knew that prior to Forecast another doctor on that tour, Dr. Finkelstein, who was Gongaware’s friend, did something much worse – he put Michael on a 24 hour drip of morphine which immediately overturned all the progress made and sent Michael into a disaster of an opiate dependency. For details of this please see the previous post.

Debbie saw Michael on the tour again after a 6 weeks interval. He was a completely different man:

Next time I met Michael in Mexico City and he was a mess, Rowe recalled.

Chang: He made an announcement to the world he needed to get help?

Rowe: Yes.

Q.    And from what you could see, when you were there at the Dangerous tour and saw him, it wasn’t a big secret to the people on the Dangerous tour, correct?
A.    No, it wasn’t a secret. I used to hang out with the dancers and the people that worked there or worked with him.

Chang: Did you ever hear the name Paul Gongaware?

Rowe: I don’t know why I know the name.

Rowe said they would not allow her to talk to Forecast. Chang asked if she knew Forecast had been hired by the insurance company. Objection.

Q.     Ms. Rowe, would you agree that not only did Mr. Jackson want to stay balanced on that line but he asked you to help him to stay on that line?
A.    Yes.
Q.    Would you agree that from what you observed, in the almost 20 years that you were with him, that he was more likely to fall off that line during the times of extreme pain or extreme stress and extreme anxiety?
A.    Yes.
Q.    Did he ever try to hide any drugs from you?
A.    Not that I know of.
Q.    Was he always open and honest with you?
A.    Yes.
Q.    And during the time period you knew him, he was able to do three world tours, correct?
A.    Yes. 
Chang asked if tours caused MJ extreme stress or anxiety. She said yes.

Rowe: When I’d go to a concert and I was fortunate enough to be on stage, I’d see him.

“I’m so freaking lucky”

MJ was my friend before anything else, Rowe said. “I’m so freaking lucky.”

It was just, it was surreal, because I wasn’t a fan, I was his friend first, Rowe explained.

Rowe: The show was amazing, the dancers were amazing, Michael was so physical when he’d do his performance.

Rowe: He’d still ask ‘how did I do, did I do ok?’ Really dude, you didn’t hear 55,000 people screaming? I think you did ok.

It was an athletic event to see him perform, Rowe explained.

Rowe said on “This Is It” MJ wasn’t performing, it was just a run-through of what he would do on the show.

Q.    Would you agree that for a person that was going through all of this and for someone who had this legitimate pain and who had these procedures and who felt bad about themselves, that in this same time period, he did all of what is on this chart? Would you agree?
A.    Yes.
Q.    “Thriller,” “Motown 25,” he built Neverland. He wrote “We Are The World.” Was he proud of that?
A.    Yes.
Q.    And raised money for Africa, correct?
A.    Yes.
Q.    He released the “Bad” album. He promoted “Thriller.” He went on the Dangerous world tour. He released the History album. He went on the History world tour. He did “Blood On The Dance Floor.” He married you. He had —
A.    But the most important.
Q.    Yes?
A.    He became a dad.

Q.    Would you agree, Ms. Rowe, that you admired Mr. Jackson for everything that he accomplished despite everything he went through?
A.    Yes.
Q.    Now, Ms. Rowe, would you agree that based on your nearly 20 years of closeness with Mr. Jackson, including the time period that you were married and including the time period that you were such close friends, would you agree that Michael Jackson greatly respected doctors?
A.    Yes.
Q.    Would you agree that he trusted doctors?
A.    Very much so.
Q.    Even when he shouldn’t have?
A.    He said they take — he said they take the oath to do no harm.
Q.    The Hippocratic Oath. All right. Would you agree that, if Michael Jackson found a doctor he believed in, he would never believe that that doctor would do anything to harm him?
A.    He was very loyal to his physicians.
Q.    He always thought that doctors had his best interest at heart?
A.    Yes.
Q.    But you knew better?
A.    I knew that the only one that really did was Alan Metzger.

NOTE: Doctors are indeed a special profession – they take the Hippocratic oath and their obligation is to always remain doctors whatever circumstances they find themselves in. Office workers can very well forget about their duties in the hours off work but doctors have to be doctors everywhere they go and at any time too.

Knowing all that Michael trusted doctors very much and in her testimony at the trial Karen Faye confirmed that Michael very much believed and respected doctors:

Karen Faye May 9, 2013:

• Michael always believed that a doctor had his best interest at heart. He always believed that if he had something from a doctor that it was safe.

Karen Faye June 28, 2013:

Q. Last time you were here you testified that Michael always thought that whatever doctors gave him, that would be okay. Do you remember that testimony?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. What was that based on?

A. That went way, way back, sir, you know. That was just like in a conversation that he always relied that doctors would be giving him, you know — would give him what was good for him, sir.

Q. So as you sit here today, you can remember having that type of conversation with Mr. Jackson in the ’80’s?

A. I just remember his attitude towards doctors, you know, a long time ago, you know. He read medical journals, he would bring them to photo shoots, so he would study, you know — he’d bring medical journals, anatomy books. I mean, he was — he read everything. He was quite a reader, and he studied many things. And, you know, I just remembered that, you know, somewhere in the beginning — in our conversations, like he believed that doctors, whatever they gave him or prescribed to him was okay.

Debbie Rowe: “Dr. Metzger had Michael’s best interest at heart. He  treated him as a patient, human being and friend”

Rowe: I knew that the only one who had Michael’s best interest was Dr. Metzger. He treated him as a patient, human being and a friend.

Q.    And you knew that there were — not all doctors were like Alan Metzger, correct?
A.    They all said they were his friend.

Rowe said the people who get the worse type of medical care are:

– very rich: can buy it

– very poor: can’t afford any

– very famous: can dictate it

When it came to the pain he wasn’t dictating, it was begging for relief, Rowe described. “He trusted what doctors were doing.”

Rowe said she tried to tell MJ he allowed doctors to control him too much, he should not be submissive.

Chang: Was he treated like a cash cow? Rowe: Yes

Chang: Was he engaged in doctor shopping? Rowe: No.

Chang said in 2000 MJ was seeing a lot of doctors. Rowe said he had his doctors in LA.

Q.    And when he went [all over the world], because the conditions he had, had necessitated seeing doctors wherever he was, correct?
A.    Yes. Especially if the children were sick, he needed to —
Q.    You knew that Prince, for example, had seizures in Japan, correct?
A.    Horrible time for us.
Rowe said she always instructed the nannies to have doctors on standby when they travelled and to keep notes of their treatment.

Q. Ms. Rowe, in your view, in the years that you knew Mr. Jackson, with Dr. Klein and Dr. Hoefflin, you didn’t think he needed to doctor shop, correct?
A.    Yes.  OBJECTION. OVERRULED. 

Ms. Chang:    With Dr. Hoefflin and Dr. Klein, did he have to go and search for doctors who would give him drugs?
A.    No.
Q.    Okay. And to the best of your knowledge, based on your experience, when he saw a doctor, it was because he needed legitimate medical care, would you agree?
A.    That’s very general. Not every appointment was “I’m having a heart attack. I have to see a doctor.” it was “I’m going to perform. I need Collagen.” Collagen is not “oh, my god, I’ve got to have Collagen.” for him it was because he was about to perform. It was part of looking good as a performer.
Q.    Would you agree that Mr. Jackson never sought out doctors solely to get drugs?

A.    To my knowledge, he did not.
Q.    And, to your knowledge, he sought doctors because he had legitimate medical care or he wanted Collagen, for example, for his acne or for other reasons, correct?
A.    All the medication that I saw, because I would read because I’m nosey who the doctors were, what the reason was, whether it was antibiotic, whether it was a painkiller, I wanted to know who gave it to him and why. Even if it was from the doctor I worked for.
Q.    Mr. Jackson did not just go to doctors to seek drugs?
A.    No. 

Attorneys talked over each other objecting.

“I feel their pain,” Rowe said pointing to the jurors.

Regarding Hoefflin putting MJ down and not treating him, Rowe said: “I didn’t think I saw it, I saw it! I was there, I saw it!”

Q.    He, however, told Mr. Jackson that he performed the procedure, correct?
A.    He said it was taken care of.
Q.    He didn’t go in saying “Put me under so I could sleep,” correct?
A.    No.
Q.    All right. In your nearly 20 years working with Dr. Klein, Ms. Rowe, would it be fair to say that you did see patients who you thought came in just to get prescription drugs, correct?
A.    Some patients were kind of a drive-by.
Q.    You did not believe Mr. Jackson was one of them, correct?
A.    No. No, he wasn’t.
Rowe said that when she worked with Dr. Klein, MJ’s vitiligo got progressively worse.

Rowe said she would watch movies with MJ all the time. Sometimes they went to the movie theater, even though MJ had a theater at Neverland.

Rowe said MJ would call her and say “To Kill a Mockingbird” is on”. “He was great friends with Gregory Peck,” she explained.

They didn’t know what schiferella was, so MJ told her “Let’s call Gregory Peck”. Peck explained a bunch of things of the movie to them.

Rowe said when MJ was very contemplative, they went to Forest Lawn (cemetery) over GriffithPark. “Michael loves sculpture,” she explained.

“I never realized that’s a place he could go and it was quiet, and just be himself. It was nice, it was nice”, Rowe recalled.

She said there wasn’t a bunch of people, he could go and hang out.

Rowe said that when he was feeling depressed, she took him out. There were a lot of impersonators in the 80-90s.

Rowe: I drive a Celica, really, MJ in a Celica?

A funny picture

Rowe: I thought we’re going to get away with it. This is awesome. Then I hear from across the room ‘Debbie, do you know this? Then everyone knew who he was, the store was packed in 20 minutes.

Rowe locked herself in bathroom at Tower Records with MJ and called his security to pick them up. “I got in so much trouble,” she recalled.

Rowe: He said you should incorporate horses with your love of animals. He paid for me to go back to school.

Rowe: In concerts, those girls will kill you to get near the stage — fans laughed in overflow room

He helped whoever he could, Rowe said.

Rowe said security would give her their watches and rings. MJ would pick a girl to dance with him. “I thought that was so sweet.” Chang showed video of woman on stage hugging Michael during “You’re Not Alone” song. Rowe cried watching it.

Q.    During your years with Mr. Jackson, did you believe that he trusted people even when they were not working for his best business or medical interests?
A.    Yes.
Q.    Did you believe that Mr. Jackson was very, very easily manipulated?
A.    He could be.
Q.    Especially if he was anxious?
A.    Yes. 

Q.    Were you aware that Mr. Jackson had difficulty sleeping when he was on tour, correct?
A.    He had difficulty sleeping anyway. It wasn’t just a tour problem.
Q.    And the tour, however, you saw the adrenaline it took when he would perform so vigorously?
A.    Yes.
Q.    Would you agree that adrenaline added to an existing problem?
A.    He didn’t sleep that night of a concert. We would sleep — I’d have the baby on the different side of the hotel because his fans were there, and there was always so much going on. It was like “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.” And he was up the next day until mid-day and then would sleep.
Q.    And have you seen him go consecutive days without sleep?
A.    I’ve seen him go three or four days without sleep because he was in the middle of doing a song or thinking there was something that he wanted to do, a project he wanted to do.
Q.    During the years that you were at Dr. Klein’s office, when Mr. Jackson received anesthesia through Mr. Fournier, they were all in conjunction with a treatment procedure, correct?
A.    Yes.
Q.    And he was under anesthesia for a very short period of time?
A.    Correct.
Q.    Not even 45 minutes in some instances, correct?
A.    That was probably the longest time.
Q.    You also know that he hated going to the dentist, but you went with him for certain procedures, and he received anesthesia then, correct?
A.    Correct.
Q.    And they were never just for sleep, correct?
A.    Correct.

Around 1997, near the end of tour, he used Propofol to sleep in Munich.

Chang: MJ never sought out anesthesiologist just for the purpose to sleep prior to that, correct?

Rowe: Yes

Rowe: After HIStory he couldn’t sleep, he talked to me and I said he had to talk to Metzger.

Chang asked about the conversation Rowe and MJ had with Dr. Metzger about him not sleeping while in Germany.

There were 2 anesthesiologists that came over, Rowe said. They brought in heart monitor and equipment to the hotel, didn’t hide anything.

Chang: Based on your observations, he never asked for medication to sleep?

Rowe: Not that I knew of.

Rowe: I discussed with, I can assume that Dr. Metzger had a discussion with these doctors about what they were going to do.

Chang: .    And in fact, in your discussions with Dr. Metzger and with these doctors, you knew that in various countries, not in the United States, but in various countries, doctors use Propofol to treat insomnia?
A.    I had never heard of Propofol prior. It was Diprivan.  I knew of treatments.
Q.    Okay. Anesthesia was legal and could be used outside of a surgical setting in ’97 in Germany, correct?
Ms. Stebbins:    Objection, calls for hearsay.
Judge:    Sustained.
Q.    You would not allow any illegal procedure to be performed in your hotel room, correct?
A.    Correct. 

Rowe said the doctors had physicians desk reference book with them. They told Michael there was risk, including death.

Q.    And did the doctors assure you that, with the heart monitor, all the monitoring equipment and two doctors working through eight hours, that there would be no harm?
A.    My fear, in addition to the harm, was because he was clean. This was after he had gone to rehab. And I didn’t want anything they gave him to affect his rehabilitation from Demerol.
Q.    And in fact, there was no narcotic —
A.    They told me that it was — that it was fine. They would not be using anything like that.
Q.    No narcotic, no pain relief associated with this type of anesthesia, correct?
A.    Correct.
Q.    And were you impressed by them?
A.    They were very thorough.

Rowe said doctors were very detailed, kept medical records. If she didn’t feel comfortable, she wouldn’t have allowed the treatment to take place.

This was 5 months after Prince was born, Rowe recalled. “They told me that anything more than 4 hours they had 2 physicians.” It took some planning to put the equipment together, Rowe said.

Q.    Michael himself does not do that kind of thing, correct?
A.    No.  Michael couldn’t use a lap top at the time.
Q.    He didn’t know how to use the internet?
A.    No.
Chang: Did he ever say bring the equipment in the dark in the middle of the night through an alley?

A.    They came through the front door up the stairs.
Q.    All right. And in fact, security helped bring it in?
A.    Yes.
Q.    Nothing came in without security knowing, correct?
A.    I don’t believe anybody ever came up without security knowing. They needed to know. You couldn’t get down the hallway. Rowe: He came through the front door.

Rowe: The doctors were there on 2 occasions, with all the same equipment.

Sometimes Michael would get IV for dehydration after shows, Rowe said.

Chang: He used IVs for fluids, vitamins while on tour, right?

Rowe: Yes

Chang: Based on your observations on that tour, Mr. Jackson wasn’t asking medication to get high?

Rowe: No. He didn’t like being high.

Chang: During the 20 years you were friends not habit of diprivan or any anesthesia to sleep?

Rowe: Not that I know

NOTE: Well, all that vitamins require is a portable IV only.  But the scene of two doctors coming through the front door with a ton of medical equipment is different and it suddenly reminded me that the manager of the HIStory tour was no other but Paul Gongaware, who definitely knew of those two episodes.

GONGAWARE AGAIN

Gongaware replaced Marcel Avram on the second leg of the tour as Avram went to jail for some tax fraud (what a nice pack of people these concert promoters are).

Okay, but if the doctors brought their equipment openly and took it away in the similar manner and did it on two occasions too, how is it possible that Gongaware as the tour manager didn’t know of it?

Just imagine it – the History tour did not have their own doctor, Michael gave no indication of taking any drugs (he really didn’t take any, he was absolutely clean) and he was giving sensational shows as Gongaware said in his testimony –  and here out of the blue two German doctors arrive with a ton of medical equipment, enter the front door, bring it over to Michael’s room, stay there until morning, 8 hours later take the equipment back and do it twice, and the tour manager does not know about it?

If you were the manager of the tour would you know? You and I would, and it is only Gongaware who has no idea, though he says that on the History tour he worked directly with Michael:

May 28, 2013 Gongaware’s testimony:

Q And sir, you then became a tour executive for the second leg of the History Tour, right?
A That’s right.
Q And the first leg you worked with Marcel Avram, is that right?
A Yes.
Q And the second leg, did you become then a tour executive?
A Yes. On the second leg I was working directly for Michael.

May 31, 2013 Gongaware’s testimony:

Q. During the second half of the tour, did you ever come to have an understanding as to whether Mr. Jackson had a doctor traveling with him?

A. He didn’t.

Q. And would you know if he did?

A. Yes.

Q. And during the second half of the tour, did you ever come to have an understanding as to whether Mr. Jackson saw any doctors on locations during the second half?

A. Not that I know of.

Q. Was there a tour doctor on that tour?

A. No.

Q. No personal doctor, no tour doctor, to your knowledge?

A. None.

Q. Did you see Mr. Jackson perform on the “History” tour?

A. Yes.

Q. How were his performances, in your opinion?

A. Great.

Q. You say that with some oomph. Why is that?

A. He was sensational.

Q. Did he seem healthy to you?

A. Yes.

Q. To your knowledge as you sit here today, did Mr. Jackson miss any shows during the “History” tour?

A. He only missed one, and that was when Princess Diana passed away. He went to bed at night he knew about the accident, went to bed, the last thing he heard was she was going to be OK, and woke up in the morning, and she’d passed away, and it affected him deeply.

Q. So as you sit here today, you can only recall him missing one during the tour, correct?

A. That’s the only one I know of, yeah.

Now AEG lawyers will surely say that those two German doctors bringing in Diprivan for MJ were a “dark secret” of Michael Jackson, but how could it be a secret if everyone around him knew about it including the hotel personnel? Well, I can assume that Gongaware did not know the specific substance that was given to MJ on those two occasions, but the fact that he had trouble sleeping before the show and was given something was surely absolutely no secret for any of them.

Gongaware simply turned a blind eye on what the doctors were doing to MJ – for this concert mafia anything is good as long as the singer can stand on his feet and perform. As to the rest of it – “they don’t know, they don’t see, they don’t care”, so I will never believe that Gongaware didn’t know. He did.

I also looked up Gongaware’s testimony about the Dangerous tour and the two doctors who “took care” of Michael there (Finkelstein and Forecast), and to my great amazement found that Gongaware fully confirmed everything I wrote about his friend Finkelstein in the previous post.

Unfortunately Mr. Panish didn’t allow Gongaware to disclose any details (due to “hearsay” rule), but even the little he said is enough to confirm that it was Finkelstein who was the first to give narcotics to MJ at the very start of the tour and who therefore ruined all the hard work done by Debbie Rowe, Dr. Metzger and Michael Jackson himself to replace narcotic painkillers with simple anelgetics.

And it is Dr. Finkelstein (now testifying for AEG) who is fully responsible for everything that happened to Michael on the Dangerous tour – the eventual cancellation of the tour, the rehab and the many millions of damages he had to pay to the tour promoter Marcel Avram,  and it is no other but his friend Gongaware who is confirming it. Amazing.

Gongaware’s testimony on May 30, 2013:

Q. And were there any doctors on that tour, Sir?
A. Yes, two.
Q. Now, one of them was named Dr. Forecast, correct?
A. Yes, that was Michael’s physician.
Q. What do you mean by —
A. That he worked strictly with Michael Jackson.
Q. And how do you know that?
A. I don’t know how I knew it, but that was the case.
Q. Well, did you ever talk to him?
A. Sure.
Q. Did he ever discuss with you in any way what his treatment was with Mr. Jackson?
A. No.
Q. Do you have an understanding as to whether — sorry — whether Dr. Forecast treated anybody else on the tour?
A. I don’t think he did. That’s why Dr. Finkelstein was out there.
Q. Do you have any understanding as to why Dr. Forecast was on the tour treating Mr. Jackson?
A. No.
Q. What party was Dr. Forecast in, if you remember?
A. He was — he would have been in A party.
Q. And you said the other doctor was the one that you know, Stewart Finkelstein, correct?
A. Yes.
Q. And you called him the tour doctor. What do you mean by that?

A. He was — we were going to just some strange — I wouldn’t call it strange, just different locations where we didn’t really know about quality of medical care, and so he was out there just to make sure everyone was taken care of.

Q. Now, was he in the A party?
A. No, he was in B party.

Q. B party. And I believe you said this, but let me ask, did you have an understanding at the time as to what type of doctor Dr. Finkelstein was?

A. Sure. He was a general practitioner.
Q. You also mentioned that he was your doctor, personal doctor, is that correct?
A. Yes, he was.

Q. Did you have an understanding as to whether or not Dr. Finkelstein was — had come on the tour to treat Michael Jackson?

A. That wasn’t the reason he was hired.
Q. Okay. What was your understanding as to why he was hired?
A. To take care of the B, C and D parties.
Q. Did you — did you ever see Dr. Finkelstein treat Michael Jackson?
A. Never saw him do that, no.
Q. Did you ever see Dr. Forecast treat Michael Jackson?
A. No.
Q. Have you ever seen any doctor treat Michael Jackson?
A. No.

Q. Now, did — during the time of the tour, the Dangerous Tour, can you recall Dr. Finkelstein ever mentioning to you that he treated Michael Jackson?

A. There were two times that he told me he did.
Q. Okay. Let’s ask about the first. What’s the first time?

A. Well, the first one was in Bangkok. We went in there — Michael hadn’t rehearsed at all, and we went in there, and he — it was like 100 degrees heat and 100 percent humidity, and he — he did the show, he nailed it. And then after that, we were supposed to do — take like a day off and do a second show in Bangkok before we moved on, and we couldn’t do the second show. Michael was — he wasn’t able to do it. Not — not right away, not as scheduled.

Q. And that didn’t answer my question, so I’m curious. My question was whether you had any understanding as to whether Dr. Finkelstein ever treated Mr. Jackson — yeah, Mr. Jackson.

A. That — I think that’s part of it. So when it — when the show was like postponed, we just said — I guess the management said we’re not going to be able to do the second show, we’re moving on, because I think the next show was in like Taipei, something like that. Maybe it was Singapore. But it was another country. And I didn’t understand why, you know, it was being cancelled, but the — but the King of Thailand said, “You’re not leaving until you play that second show because that’s when my friends are coming,” So he put like soldiers on the doors of the hotel to make sure we weren’t leaving. So at that point, you know —

Q. I’m going to have to ask it again. I apologize. Does Dr. Finkelstein come into this?
A. Yes, doctor — sorry.
Q. It’s all right.

A. I’ll get to it, I guess. Dr. Forecast wasn’t there then, he hadn’t arrived yet, so Dr. Finkelstein was pressed into service to treat Michael Jackson.
Q. All right. And so in Bangkok, you understood that Dr. Finkelstein, in some measure, treated Michael Jackson?

A. Yes.
Q. All right. Did he tell you the specifics of what he did?

Mr. Panish: That would be calling for hearsay.

Judge: Sustained.

Mr. Putnam: All right.

Q. Did you have an understanding as to what his treatment was?

Mr. Panish: It would call for hearsay.

Judge: It probably will. Sustained.
Q. Did you have an understanding as to any other time that Dr. Finkelstein treated, in any measure, Mr. Jackson?
A. Yeah, there was one other time he told me that he did.
Q. And when was that?

Mr. Panish: Same thing, your honor.

Q. Did you ever hear any details — I’m not asking what they were, I’m asking did you ever hear any details about that — those treatments?
A. No.

The story about “not knowing the details” is a lie because in his testimony Finkelstein said he always discussed things with Gongaware and I will never believe that he didn’t tell him what he was doing to Michael during those 24 hours while he was treating him to Morphine! From someone else he could conceal it, but from his old friend he sure wouldn’t.

Now Gongaware says that he heard of any drugs on the Dangerous tour only from Michael’s announcement on TV which is a joke that isn’t even funny:

Q. We were talking about Mr. Finkelstein during the Dangerous Tour, correct, sir?
A. Yes.
Q. All right. During the Dangerous Tour, not after, during it, did you ever come to have an understanding that Mr. Jackson had a problem with drugs?
A. No.
Q. Did you, during the Dangerous Tour, ever come to have an understanding that Mr. Jackson had a problem with painkillers?
A. No.
Q. Was the Dangerous Tour cut short, sir?
A. Yes.
Q. And where was it cut short?
A. Mexico city.
Q. And did you have an understanding as to why it was cut short?

A. After it — afterward, Michael made a statement that he had a problem.

Let me tell you one thing. These mafia concert promoters know everything inside out only they don’t give a damn as long as the performer is able to perform.

Moreover they even assume that a performer takes drugs to be able to cope with the incredible schedules they set up for them. It’s “business” for them, you know, and all they care about is that the show must go on. The more dates they squeeze out of the performer and the more tickets they sell the better it is, and how the artist deals with all the strain is none of their business.

I don’t know about others but as to Michael Jackson that was exactly the case. It is because all these people were sure that he was “doing something” and thought the worst of him that they overlooked his real health problem – lack of biological sleep of which he was slowly dying.

With so terrible preconceptions a person can die of a heart attack in full view of everyone but no one will help him because they’ll think that it is a withdrawal symptom and all he needs is a “straight jacket” and “tough love” which the revolting Randy Phillips demanded for poor Michael.

DAD AT LAST

After the episode with German doctors during the HIStory tour where Gongaware was the tour manager Rowe’s testimony went over to personal matters:

Chang: Did you have discussions he wanted to be a father? 

Rowe: He loved kids, he did.

Q.    Did you believe he would be a good father?
A.    I believe there are certain people who need to be parents, and I always thought he was one of them.
Q.    And in fact, because he wanted children, after his divorce from Lisa Marie Presley, did you offer to have children for Mr. Jackson?
A.    I was trying — he was devastated after their divorce. I was trying to help him feel better about it or try to figure out what happened. I said, “What’s the thing that makes you the saddest?” He said, “I never had any children.” And I said, “Well, that doesn’t have to keep you from being a father.” I said, “You can be a father.” I said, “Let me have a baby with you. You can have the joy of being a parent.”
Q.    Do you remember in fact — did you agree to have children with him?
A.    It took him a couple of weeks going back and forth thinking about it. Then we talked about it and then...

MJ is in full make-up for Ghosts. Imagine him running  around the tarmac screaming with happiness that he would finally be a dad. This must have been quite a sight

Q.    Did you take Mr. Jackson for rides on a Harley sometimes? 

A.    We did go out, yes.
Q.    And is he still in his costume here?
A.    He was in makeup getting ready to shoot. That was when the mayor had turned into the monster, the ugly part, and I was done with work. It was — it had to have been in the afternoon. Maybe it was a Friday, and I only worked half day. I road my bike over. He was in Van Nuys. I lived in Sherman oaks. So I road my bike over. I asked if he could leave special effects to come for a ride with me. He said, “Sure.”

So then he always had had film crews with him to kind of document what he was doing different times of his life. They were going to come.

And I said, “No, I need to talk to you by yourself.” He said, “Okay.” So he got on the bike. I said, “where do you want to go?” He said, “Let’s go over here.” We made a mistake and got on the actual tarmac instead of going where you’re supposed to go. Anyway, we ended up getting where we’re supposed to go.

I stopped the bike. He said, “what’s the matter?” I said I needed to talk to him about something. He said, “What do you want to talk about?” I said, “You’re going to be a dad.”
Q.    This is when you told him that he was —
A.    That I was pregnant.
Q.    That you were pregnant with Prince? Okay. Was he excited?
A.    He was so excited. He ran around the tarmac screaming, Rowe said sobbing. 

Chang asked if he bought all the books around. Rowe said he was a big reader anyway. “He wanted to be the best dad he could be” she recalled. Rowe said she asked Michael to make two cassettes for Prince, she wanted the baby to hear his voice.

Q.    Did he have to leave for the History tour shortly thereafter?
A.    He did.
Q.    Did he want the baby to hear his voice though every day?
A.    We had talked about — because I wanted to work. He said, “Come on tour.” I said, “No, I really need to work.” He said, “Well, I’m going to be gone.” I said, “I know that.” I said, “What I’d like you to do is make cassette recordings for me that I can play.” I said, “I’ll promise I’ll never listen to them. I think it’s important that the baby knows your voice. Since we’re not going to see each other, just do that for me.” So he made two cassettes for Prince. Every night I read before I went to sleep. So every night, while I was reading my horror books, I had a headset over my stomach so the baby could hear his voice. I don’t know. I told him, I said, “You should sing lullabies or read books or whatever just as long as the baby knows who you are.”
Q.    Did you do that for Paris as well?
A.    We did. We did. They knew his voice.
Q.    Now back when he left for the History tour, did there comes a time the two of you decided to get married?
A.    We did.

The wedding took place at night after the concert. Debbie Rowe was 6 months pregnant. Dr. Metzger was the best man

Chang showed pictures of Dr. Metzger and Rowe/MJ in Sydney during wedding, MJ, Debbie and kids.

Q.    Is Dr. Metzger the fellow all the way to the left?
A.    Yes, and that’s his ex-wife that you can barely see. Evie was my maid of honor. Evie was Michael’s assistant.
Q.    That’s Evie there on the right?
A.    No, that’s Dr. Metzger’s ex-wife.
Q.    That’s the two of you at the wedding in Sydney?
A.    Yes.
Q.    During the time period that you were married, did you have times that you got to observe Michael with the children as a father?
A.    He was amazing. He was amazing.
Q.    What was he like?

“He was an amazing father”

A.    He was so caring. We ordered the watermelon for the baby, and he said, “Share some with Debbie.”
Q.    And he did? He said, “Share some with Debbie,” and he turned to you and gave it. When did you find out you were pregnant with Paris?
A.    He was working. I think he was in town because I’d gone for a blood test, and they said I wasn’t pregnant. I stood up, and I got really dizzy. And I called him, and I said, “I know I told that you I wasn’t pregnant,” I said, “But I know that I am.”
Q.    Was he excited to have a little girl?
A.    He was. I told him, I said, “You’re going to be so whipped.” I said, “She’s just going to have you around her little finger. And all these plans that you made ruling the world with your son,” I said, “It’s not going to happen unless Paris says so.”
Q.    Did he buy her, even at that young age, clothes and jewelry?
A.    The funny thing was, before anybody knew that I was pregnant with his baby, we went out on tour, and he was shopping for clothes. It was his favorite thing to do is shop for children’s clothes. He would a lot of times donate them, when he got back, because there were boxes and boxes from tour. I was pregnant, and he was helping me pick out all these clothes, but he was picking out clothes for his own child. Nobody knew that. To this day, I still have never seen any pictures. There were people following us and stuff. It’s like no one ever put the two together.
Q.    Ms. Rowe, did there comes a time when the paparazzi and everything became too much and you decided to get a divorce?
A.    Yes.
Q.    And did you make a decision to leave the children with Michael?
A.    Yes.
Q.    And did you ever regret that decision?
A.    No.
Q.    And why did you make the decision to leave the children with Michael?
A.    Michael wanted to be a father. I didn’t sign on to be a mom. I loved him very much, and I still do. I wanted him to be a father. I wanted him to have everything he didn’t have growing up. I wanted him to experience it with his own child, with his own children.
Q.    You meant that he performed all the time when he was young, correct?
A.    Yes.
Q.    And he wanted his children to have a full childhood?
A.    Yes.
Q.    And did you know that he would give those children all the love in the world?
A.    I never questioned that he wouldn’t.
Q.    And you love those children, too?
A.    I’m so proud of them. I’m so proud of them. I’m so proud of his littlest one. He’s growing up so fast.
Q.    And you never — Ms. Rowe, the person that we’ve all observed you to be, you never would have left your children to a man that you believed was a drug addict, correct?
A.    No.

Chang asked how MJ looked in the This Is It movie. “He looked horrible,” she responded.  Rowe learned about MJ’s death on the radio, she was driving home.

Rowe said she saw Prince at least once after MJ died. “We don’t hate each other,” she said. But she’s closer to Paris. Rowe said at the end of March, April started seeing Paris, talked on the phone every day. “She stayed weekends with me,” Rowe testified.

“Their father is dead”

Their father is dead, an emotional Rowe said. When I saw the tour come out, the schedule, I called —
Ms. Stebbins:    Your honor, I’m going to object to this. This is all — the part about the tour schedule —
Ms. Chang:    Ms. Rowe, I just want to ask you about just based on your observations, how have you observed the death of the father —
A.    “I almost lost my daughter”, Rowe said sobbing on the stand
Q.    Have you spoken to her about the loss of her father?
A.    She is devastated. She tried to kill herself. She is devastated. She has no life. She doesn’t feel she has a life anymore.
Q.    This is never what you wanted for your children —
A.    No.
Q.    — when you made that sacrifice?
A.    My children were never a sacrifice.

Rowe left the courtroom sobbing.

In re-direct, Rowe said Dr. Klein treated MJ for acne, lupus, scarring and vitiligo. Rowe said she wasn’t present when Michael had Botox because when she worked at Dr. Klein it had not been FDA approved yet.

Putnam: Did he use Diprivan for collagen procedure?

Rowe: Yes.

Rowe said it was just Demerol when collagen was injected around the mouth area. But when injection was under the eye, it was painful, that’s when we started the anesthesia, Rowe explained.

Rowe said she asked Michael Jackson are you here because you really need collagen, or why are you here. “I didn’t understand why he would come in twice in one week for something we had just done and I — I know he’s a perfectionist. I know he’s meticulous, but I didn’t necessarily see what he wanted to have done.” 

This was early 90s. She was concerned MJ was coming in for the drugs.

Putnam: You grew concerned about Diprivan intake, approached Klein?

Rowe: That was Demerol, I called Dr. Metzger, I was concerned about Demerol. Dr. Metzger said up Vistaril, lower Demerol.

Putnam: Did you ask Dr. Klein if he believed that Michael was addicted to Diprivan because you were worried about the frequency of his use? 

A.    Of going to Hoefflin, is that right?
Q.    I don’t know if he was going to Hoefflin or just otherwise. And —
A.   What was the question? I’m sorry.
Q.   Did you go to talk to Dr. Klein and ask him if he believed that Michael was addicted to Diprivan because of the frequency of the times with which Mr. Jackson was coming to get Diprivan?
A.    Yes, yes.
Q.    When was this? When did that conversation take place?
A.    Late ’80s, early ’90s.
Q.    And then he went to rehab, and that was in ’93, right?
A.    Yes.
Q.    And you talked to him while he was there, didn’t you, and you told him that he needed to stop taking the drugs?
A.    When he called me — he called me from England and said, “What are you doing?” I said, “I’m working. Normal people work.” I said, “What are you doing?” He said, “Well, I’m in England.” I said, “I know. You’re in rehab.” I said, “Aren’t you supposed to be working? Aren’t you supposed to be, like, making your bed or dusting or something?” I didn’t know what they did in rehab facilities. He said, “No. I’m fine.” I said, “You know you have to stop taking everything. You’re there to get cleaned up and to take care of business and to be fine.”
Q.    When you had that conversation, do you remember specifically telling him that he needed to stop taking the Diprivan?
A.    I told him everything. He had to stop everything.
Q.    You in fact specifically said he had to stop taking the anesthetic, correct?
A.    Yes.
Q.    This was in 1993?
A.    Yes.

HIStory tour was 96-97, Munich.

Putnam: Metzger had Jackson’s interest in mind?

Rowe: Yes.

Rowe said Dr. Metzger directed her to bring a bag of medication to the Peninsula Hotel for Dr. Forecast.

Dr. Klein went to HIStory tour to do collagen touch ups, acne treatment. He gave MJ Demerol.

I was told you can’t become addicted to Diprivan, Rowe testified. She said it was an anesthesia.

Before you go to sleep, there’s a bit of loss of control, she explained. “I was worried that sensation might trigger an addiction.”

He was a bit of a control freak, he didn’t like to be high, Rowe said.

Rowe: I was just worried that part of the anesthesia would kick in. I was told you can’t become addicted to it.

Rowe: Dr. Metzger wanted to try Xanax and Michael said that hadn’t work. I said you need to talk to each other and let me know what to do.

MJ and Debbie in Paris, 1996

After the divorce, Rowe never talked to the doctors about Michael’s treatment anymore.

Putnam: After 2000, whatever happened to Mr. Jackson you don’t have first knowledge?

Rowe: Correct.

In re-cross, Chang questioned: When you asked Dr. Klein if anyone could be addicted to diprivan, he said no, correct?

Rowe: Yes

Chang: Was the bag of medication to wean MJ off Demerol before 1993 rehab?

Rowe: Yes

Chang: Did he do everything he could to be the best?

Rowe: He did

Rowe was excused.

PART 2

MEDIA COVERAGE

The media reports about Debbie’s testimony covered only a small fraction of what she said. No proper mention was made of the surgery on Michael’s head and I am afraid that the general public most probably did not even grasp the enormity of the problem.

I don’t remember anyone stressing the point that Michael’s use of painkillers was fully legitimate and actually the only way out in that situation. Little detail was also provided of the hard work done by Rowe, Dr. Metzger and Michael himself to reduce his dependency of painkillers.

No, most of it was a combination of several phrases reshuffled back and forth in one and the same standard manner. By the way the headlines alone make it clear that the nastiest and closest to tabloids is the LA Times: 

Debbie Rowe cries during testimony

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

By Miriam Hernandez and Christina Salvo

LOS ANGELES (KABC) — Michael Jackson’s ex-wife Debbie Rowe took the stand Wednesday in the pop icon’s wrongful death trial, crying as she described Jackson’s fear of pain.

It took a subpoena to bring Rowe, mother to Prince and Paris Jackson, to court to testify for the defense. Prosecutors questioned Rowe about Jackson’s drug use when they were a couple. AEG attorneys want to show that Jackson had drug problems as far back as the early 1990s.

Rowe was a nurse assistant to dermatologist Arnold Klein, who she said provided the painkiller Demerol and Propofol for many of the hundreds of treatments Jackson received over 20 years.

According to records in evidence, Klein was treating Jackson up until three days before his death.

Rowe broke down on the witness stand, describing Jackson as a victim of doctors competing over a celebrity patient.

“Michael respected doctors immensely,” she testified. “Unfortunately, some of the doctors decided that when Michael was in pain, that they would try to outdo each other, who could give the better drug.”

Rowe identified the doctors as Klein and plastic surgeon Steven Hoefflin.

“These idiots were going back and forth the whole time and not caring about him,” Rowe said.

Rowe testified that Jackson had trouble sleeping, but always seemed to be able to sleep after a doctor’s appointment. She said his use of pain meds started with his accident in 1984, when his scalp burned filming a Pepsi commercial.

In 1993, she described a painful surgery to stretch his scalp and remove scar tissue. Even though the surgery happened three years before Jackson wed Rowe, she was present during the surgery. She said Jackson asked her to be present to make sure everything was OK.

“Michael had a very low pain tolerance,” Rowe said as she began to cry. “His fear of pain was incredible.”

Klein and Hoefflin, she said, were providing powerful drugs — to the point she consulted with Jackson’s internist. She testified that Dr. Allan Metzger designed a plan to wean Jackson off the meds.

She told the jury that another doctor foiled the effort as Jackson left on the Dangerous World Tour, and that he rejected Metzger’s directions. Later that year, Jackson announced he was cutting his Dangerous World Tour short to enter rehab.

“My friends and doctors advised me to seek professional guidance immediately in order to eliminate what has become an addiction. It is time for me to acknowledge my need for treatment in order to regain my health,” Jackson said in a recorded statement at the time.

Rowe returns to the witness stand on Thursday.

AEG is trying to show that Jackson’s use of medications and prescription drugs was habitual, and that his death, in part, was caused by his own behavior.

The lawsuit, brought by Katherine Jackson and the pop star’s three children, claims that AEG was negligent in Jackson’s death. Katherine Jackson claims that AEG executives pressured her son to perform and, at the star’s request, hired Dr. Conrad Murray.

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/entertainment&id=9206174

Jackson’s ex-wife testifies about his fear of pain

By ANTHONY McCARTNEY
— Aug. 14 9:18 PM EDT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Michael Jackson’s ex-wife broke into tears on Wednesday when she took the witness stand in a civil case and described the singer’s fear of pain and reliance on physicians.

Debbie Rowe said the pop star trusted doctors to prescribe pain medication to him, but they sometimes tried to outdo each other while losing sight of Jackson’s care.

“Michael had a very low pain tolerance and his fear of pain was incredible,” Rowe said. “I think the doctors took advantage of him that way.”

She said she was with Jackson when he received treatments from his longtime dermatologist Dr. Arnold Klein and from plastic surgeon Dr. Steven Hoefflin.

They would try to out-do each other, with each one prescribing different drugs while trying to persuade Jackson their recommendations were better to manage his pain, she said.

The doctors “were going back and forth the whole time, not caring about him,” Rowe told jurors.

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. Rowe also worked with Klein beginning in the late 1970s.

Rowe said she told another one of Jackson’s doctors, Allan Metzger, that she was concerned that Klein and Hoefflin were giving the singer too many medications.

“The only physician who ever did anything, the only physician who cared for Michael was Allan Metzger,” Rowe said, fighting back tears.

Rowe said Metzger arranged for two doctors to give Jackson the anesthetic propofol in Germany in 1997 when he complained that he couldn’t sleep during his “HIStory” tour.

On two occasions, the doctors brought medical equipment to Jackson’s hotel suite and monitored the singer while he was under the effect of the anesthetic for eight hours. The doctors warned Jackson about the dangers of using propofol, but Rowe said he disregarded the information.

“He was just more worried about not sleeping,” she said. Rowe said she would not allow the singer to get similar propofol treatments for sleep issues after the use in Germany.

Jackson died from an overdose of propofol that was administered by another physician in 2009.

Rowe also described efforts to wean Jackson off the painkiller Demerol after he had surgery in 1993 to repair damage to his scalp sustained when he was burned while filming a Pepsi commercial years earlier.

She said Metzger devised a plan to treat Jackson’s pain with different medications before he went on a leg of his “Dangerous” tour. Rowe lived with Jackson for three weeks to ensure he stayed on the regimen.

“At that point we were friends,” Rowe said. “He wasn’t a patient.”

She said Jackson knew he couldn’t take pain medications forever and needed a strong voice to get him off the drugs. “I’m probably one of the only people who said no to him,” Rowe said.

Rowe said the plan to break Jackson’s use of Demerol failed when a doctor who accompanied the singer on tour gave him the drug while overseas.

A phone message left at Klein’s office was not immediately returned. An email sent to Hoefflin’s former practice was returned, stating the plastic surgeon retired five years ago and no longer practiced medicine.

Rowe said Jackson respected doctors immensely because they went to school and vowed to do no harm to patients.

Katherine Jackson claims in her lawsuit that AEG Live failed to properly investigate the doctor later convicted of giving her son an overdose of propofol while he prepared for a series of comeback shows in 2009.

She sat in the front row of the courtroom and leaned forward in her seat during portions of Rowe’s testimony.

AEG denies it hired Conrad Murray or bears any responsibility for the singer’s death.

Marvin S. Putnam, the company’s lead defense attorney, said in opening statements that the case was about Jackson’s personal choices and his desire to use propofol as a sleep aid.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/jury-hear-jacksons-ex-wife-debbie-rowe

Debbie Rowe: Michael Jackson used propofol to sleep in the 1990s

By Jeff Gottlieb and Matt Hamilton
August 15, 2013, 5:36 a.m.

Describing the King of Pop as being “at the end of his rope,” Michael Jackson’s ex-wife on Wednesday testified that the singer twice used the powerful anesthetic propofol as a sleep aid in the 1990s.

Debbie Rowe’s testimony in a Los Angeles courtroom was the first evidence in Jackson’s wrongful-death trial that the singer had previously used propofol — which eventually killed him — for a purpose other than medical procedures.

Rowe was called as a witness by AEG Live in the lawsuit filed by Jackson’s mother and three children. The Jacksons say that AEG negligently hired and supervised Conrad Murray, the cardiologist who administered the fatal dose of propofol to Jackson in June 2009 as he was rehearsing for a 50-concert comeback in London.

AEG says that the singer hired Murray and that any money the company was supposed to pay the doctor was an advance to Jackson.

On Wednesday, Rowe testified that while performing in Germany in the mid-1990s, she and Jackson called Dr. Allan Metzger, Jackson’s internist, complaining that the singer couldn’t sleep. She said Jackson told her that sleeping pills hadn’t worked and that “he was at the end of his rope.”

Metzger arranged for a German medical team to go to Jackson’s hotel suite in Munich. Rowe said the two Germans brought enough equipment that the hotel room resembled a surgical suite.

Rowe said her husband was unconscious for eight hours while the medical team monitored him. She said Jackson used the anesthetic again three days later, but it was the only time she witnessed the singer using the anesthetic for sleep.

Experts have testified that being unconscious from propofol is not the same as sleep.

Earlier in the day, Rowe portrayed the singer as being whipsawed between doctors who were competing to see who could give him the most powerful painkillers while she was trying to wean him from the drugs.

She spent much of her testimony describing drugs administered by dermatologist Arnold Klein, her employer, and plastic surgeon Steven Hoefflin, saying they would try to one-up each other by prescribing Jackson stronger drugs.

“These idiots were going back and forth the whole time, not caring about him,” she testified.

Rowe said she was with Jackson about 10 times when Hoefflin gave him propofol while undergoing various procedures, such as collagen and botox injections. She said Klein also gave him propofol.

“Michael had a very low pain tolerance, and his fear of pain was incredible, and I think the doctors took advantage of him that way,” Rowe said.

Rowe, the mother of Jackson’s two oldest children, spoke in colorful, folksy language and joked about her 60-mile drive to the downtown Los Angeles courtroom. But she also flashed anger at an AEG attorney and cried several times.

She portrayed herself as the singer’s best friend and guardian. “He trusted people — foolishly, foolishly trusted a lot of people,” she said as Jackson’s mother nodded in agreement.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-debbie-rowe-michael-jackson-propofol-20130815,0,6454650.story

As usual Alan Duke provided the most details:

Michael Jackson’s ex-wife testifies

Debbie Rowe forced to testify about singer’s drug use

By Alan Duke CNN

POSTED: 03:08 AM PDT Aug 14, 2013 UPDATED: 04:40 PM PDT Aug 14, 2013

LOS ANGELES (CNN) – Debbie Rowe, who is the mother of Jackson’s two oldest children, is being forced to testify about the singer’s drug use by lawyers for AEG Live, the concert promoter being sued by members of Jackson’s family, who say the promoter is responsible for his death.

Doctors “would try to outbid” each other on who could giveMichael Jackson “the better drug” for his pain, Rowetestified Wednesday.

Jackson family matriarch Katherine Jackson sat Wednesday morning in the front row of the small courtroom, where she has spent much of the past 16 weeks watching the trial.

Dr. Allen Metzger — Jackson’s general practitioner in the United States — arranged for the German anesthesiologists to infuse the singer with propofol in a Munich hotel in July 1997 after sedatives failed to help him sleep between concerts, Rowe testified.

“I think they tried it and it hadn’t worked and if he couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t perform,” she testified.Jackson “was at the end of his rope; he didn’t know what else to do.”

He “felt better” after eight hours of propofol-induced sleep and decided to get a second treatment after his second Munich show, she said.

Metzger testified at the criminal trial of Dr. Conrad Murray that he was never involved in giving propofol treatments for Jackson and was not aware of the drug until much later.

Rowe, who met Jackson when she worked as a nurse in the Beverly Hills office of Dr. Arnold Klein, backed away from her previous statement at her deposition in which she said doctors also gave Jackson propofol infusions in hotels in France during the HIStory tour.

AEG Live contends that Jackson used propofol for years to treat his insomnia, including when Rowe was traveling with him in Europe in the 1990s.

The coroner ruled Jackson died on June 25, 2009, from a propofol overdose administered by Murray, who is serving a prison sentence for involuntary manslaughter.

Rowe testified that Jackson underwent surgery in 1993 to repair burns suffered years earlier.

His doctors “couldn’t get a grip of the pain” and that two doctors “were having a pissing contest over who gave him the better drug.”

“Michael had a very low pain tolerance, and his fear of pain was incredible,” Rowe testified. “And I think that doctors took advantage of him that way.”

Rowe has rarely given interviews since her divorce from the pop icon, although she did testify in her former husband’s defense during his child molestation trial in 2005. Jackson was acquitted on all charges in that case.

Jackson lawyers smiled as the trial recessed for the lunch break, indicating that they believed the defense witness was actually supporting their case.

“Michael respected doctors immensely, that they went to school, that they studied and to do no harm,”Rowe said. “Unfortunately, some of the doctors decided that when Michael was in pain or something that they would try to outbid on who could give him the better drug and so he listened to those doctors.”

Rowe said many of the doctors who treated Jackson were “idiots,” including the dermatologist she worked for from 1979 until she quit in 1996 before she married Jackson.

“The only physician who ever cared for Michael as Michael was Allen Metzger,” Rowe testified.

“So Metzger continued as his doctor?” AEG Live lawyer Marvin Putnam asked.

“I don’t know, because Conrad Murray got in there and killed him,” Rowe replied — a reference to the doctor AEG Live is accused of hiring.

AEG Live executives, who were promoting and producing Jackson’s comeback concerts, had no way of knowing that Murray was infusing him with propofol each night for two months in the spring of 2009, Putnam said.

“Almost no one knew until after his death,” he said. “AEG Live certainly didn’t know about it.”

The Jackson family’s lawyers contend that the promoters ignored warning signs that Jackson’s health was deteriorating during the two months before his death. Instead of getting him to another doctor who might have saved his life, they gave Murray the responsibility of getting Jackson to rehearsals, they argue.

Michael Jackson’s mother and three of her children contend AEG Live is liable in his death because it negligently hired, retained or supervised Murray. The company’s agreement to pay Murray $150,000 a month put the doctor in a conflict of interest because he was in deep debt and could not risk losing the job by refusing Jackson’s demands for propofol, their lawyers contend.

AEG Live argues that while its executives negotiated with Murray to serve as Jackson’s physician for the “This Is It” tour, it was Jackson who chose and controlled the doctor.

One revelation from Rowe was that a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon faked doing a procedure on Jackson on two occasions, although he told the singer he had done it. Jackson complained about painful scars in his nose and went to Dr. Steven Hoefflin to inject them with collagen, she said.

“He put Michael out and didn’t do anything but put tape on him as if he had treated him,” Rowe testified. The doctor told her he did that because he could not find the scars Jackson thought were there.

Wednesday is the 69th day of testimony in the trial, which the judge told jurors would likely be given to them for deliberations in late September.

http://www.keyt.com/lifestyle/entertainment/Michael-Jackson-s-ex-wife-testifies/-/17653428/21460722/-/item/1/-/5jb1gd/-/index.html

Debbie Rowe: Paris Jackson ‘has no life’ since father’s death

By Alan Duke, CNN

updated 3:22 PM EDT, Thu August 15, 2013

Paris and Debbie. Spring 2013

Los Angeles (CNN) — The mother of Michael Jackson’s two oldest children broke down in tears when she was asked to describe the impact of the singer’s death on his daughter Paris.

“Their father is dead,” Debbie Rowe responded. “I almost lost my daughter! She is devastated. She tried to kill herself. She is devastated. She has no life. She doesn’t feel she has a life anymore.”

Paris, 15, attempted suicide in early June and is still being treated in a facility for her emotional problems.

Jurors sitting for a 70th day of testimony in the wrongful death trial of Jackson’s last concert promoter have laughed loudly at time during colorful testimony of Rowe, who alternated between tears and jokes.

When she and Jackson divorced after their three-year marriage in 1999, the singer “got custody of the doctors,” she joked Wednesday.

Rowe returned to the witness stand Thursday for a second day of testimony in the small Los Angeles courtroom. She was ordered to testify about the singer’s drug use by lawyers for AEG Live, the concert promoter being sued by Jackson’s mother and three children.

Wednesday’s questioning by AEG Live lawyer Marvin Putnam centered on Jackson’s use of prescription drugs — to deal with pain from scalp surgery, and two times in Germany, where doctors used the surgical anesthetic propofol to treat his insomnia.

Thursday’s testimony, however, began with Rowe’s description of Jackson’s skin problems, which included vitiligo — a condition in which his pigment disappeared, leaving large white spots on his face, hands and body.

“Everyone says he bleached himself, but he didn’t,” Rowe said. Many of his visits to Dr. Arnold Klein, the Beverly Hills dermatologist where she worked for 18 years as a medical assistant, were to treat the condition, she testified.

Jackson compared himself to the “Elephant Man,” a 19th-century Englishman who became a circus sideshow curiosity because of severe disfigurements, she said.

“He was worried that people would see the disease or the disfigurement before they would see him working sometimes,” Rowe testified.

He also suffered from discoid lupus, which made his skin tissue “mushy,” especially on his scalp, she said. Jackson’s scalp was severely burned during a pyrotechnics accident while he was filming a Pepsi commercial in 1984.

MJ’s insomnia struggle

Two German doctors treated Jackson’s insomnia with propofol 12 years before he died from an overdose of the surgical anesthetic, Rowe testified Wednesday.

Dr. Allen Metzger — Jackson’s general practitioner in the United States — arranged for the German anesthesiologists to infuse the singer with propofol in a Munich hotel in July 1997 after sedatives failed to help him sleep between concerts, Rowe testified.

“I think they tried it and it hadn’t worked, and if he couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t perform,” she testified. Jackson “was at the end of his rope; he didn’t know what else to do.”

He “felt better” after eight hours of propofol-induced sleep and decided to get a second treatment after his second Munich show, she said.

Metzger testified at the criminal trial of Dr. Conrad Murray that he was never involved in propofol treatments for Jackson and was not aware of the drug until much later.

Rowe backed away from her previous statement during a deposition, in which she said doctors also gave Jackson propofol infusions in hotels in France during the HIStory tour, in the late 1990s.

AEG Live contends that Jackson used propofol for years to treat his insomnia, including when Rowe was traveling with him in Europe in the 1990s.

The coroner ruled Jackson died on June 25, 2009, from a propofol overdose administered by Murray, who is serving a prison sentence for involuntary manslaughter.

AEG Live executives, who were promoting and producing Jackson’s comeback concerts, had no way of knowing that Murray was infusing him with propofol each night for two months in the spring of 2009, AEG lawyer Marvin Putnam said in his opening statements 16 weeks ago.
“Almost no one knew until after his death,” Putnam said. “AEG Live certainly didn’t know about it.”

The Jackson family’s lawyers contend that the promoters ignored warning signs that Jackson’s health was deteriorating in the two months before his death. Instead of getting him to another doctor who might have saved his life, they gave Murray the responsibility of getting Jackson to rehearsals, they argue.

Michael Jackson’s mother, Katherine Jackson, and three of her children contend AEG Live is liable in his death because it negligently hired, retained or supervised Murray. The company’s agreement to pay Murray $150,000 a month put the doctor in a conflict of interest because he was in deep debt and could not risk losing the job by refusing Jackson’s demands for propofol, their lawyers contend.

AEG Live argues that while its executives negotiated with Murray to serve as Jackson’s physician for the “This Is It” tour, it was Jackson who chose and controlled the doctor.

“Getting a grip’ on MJ’s pain

Jackson underwent surgery in 1993 to repair burns suffered in the 1984 accident, including placement of a balloon under his scalp to stretch it over several months, Rowe testified.

His doctors “couldn’t get a grip of the pain” the procedure caused and two doctors “were having a pissing contest over who gave him the better drug,” she said.

“Michael had a very low pain tolerance, and his fear of pain was incredible,” Rowe testified. “And I think that doctors took advantage of him that way.”

Rowe said many of the doctors who treated Jackson were “idiots,” including the dermatologist she worked for from 1979 until she quit in 1996 before she married Jackson.

“Michael respected doctors immensely, that they went to school, that they studied … to do no harm,” Rowe said. “Unfortunately, some of the doctors decided that when Michael was in pain or something that they would try to outbid on who could give him the better drug, and so he listened to those doctors.”

Metzger tailored a plan to help Jackson withdraw from dependence on demerol, a powerful painkiller given him because of the scalp pain, she said. That plan, however, was derailed when Jackson resumed traveling on his “Dangerous” tour, she said.

After six weeks, when the tour reached Mexico City (in autumn 1993), Jackson was “a hot mess,” she said.

“He was depressed,” she said. “He had taken something. I don’t know what he had taken or who he had got it from.”

After a three-day argument with Jackson, Rowe said, she convinced him to end his tour early and enter a drug rehabilitation program.

“You need to straighten up,” she said she told Jackson. “You need to face whatever it is that is going on and we’ll get through this.”

Jackson eventually announced publicly that he was entering a rehab program to deal with an addiction to prescription drugs.

Rowe said Jackson’s drug use was not a secret among people in the “Dangerous” tour production. AEG Live Co-CEO Paul Gongaware, who was the over the “This Is It” production when Jackson died, was also tour manager for the “Dangerous” tour.

One revelation from Rowe was that a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon faked doing a procedure on Jackson on two occasions, although he told the singer he had done it. Jackson complained about painful scars in his nose and went to Dr. Steven Hoefflin to inject them with collagen, she said.

“He put Michael out and didn’t do anything but put tape on him as if he had treated him,” Rowe testified. The doctor told her he did that because he could not find the scars Jackson thought were there.

Thursday is the 70th day of testimony in the trial, which the judge told jurors would likely be given to them for deliberations in late September.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/15/showbiz/jackson-death-trial/index.html?sr=sharebar_twitter

Debbie Rowe sobs on witness stand while describing daughter Paris Jackson’s ‘devastation’ after Michael Jackson’s death: ‘She doesn’t feel she has a life anymore’

BY NANCY DILLON / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

THURSDAY, AUGUST 15, 2013, 5:27 PM

Rowe testified for a second day in the wrongful death trial pitting the King of Pop’s children and mom Katherine Jackson against AEG Live, the concert promoter behind his ill-fated ‘This Is It’ shows.

Michael Jackson’s ex-wife wailed in anguish on the witness stand Thursday as she described the “devastation” that nearly claimed her only daughter with the King of Pop.

“Their father is dead…I almost lost my daughter,” Rowe said through loud sobs when asked about the fallout from Jackson’s fatal overdose in June 2009.

“She is devastated, she tried to kill herself,” Rowe moaned, describing 15-year-old Paris. “She doesn’t feel she has a life anymore.”

When a lawyer for Katherine Jackson suggested that Michael’s death wasn’t something Rowe contemplated when she made the “sacrifice” of giving him full custody of their kids, the former dermatologist’s assistant snapped back.

“My children were never a sacrifice,” she said, breaking down to the point that she needed time to compose herself outside the courtroom.
Rowe, 54, testified for a second day in the wrongful death trial pitting Michael’s kids and mom Katherine Jackson against AEG Live, the concert promoter behind his ill-fated “This Is It” shows.

Katherine and the kids claim AEG should pay some $1 billion for negligently hiring the doctor convicted of providing the singer with the surgery-strength anesthetic that killed him.
AEG claims Michael hired Dr. Conrad Murray and had a secret history of using the anesthetic to treat his insomnia.

Paris’ early June suicide attempt – in which she reportedly took 20 Motrin pills and slashed her arm with a kitchen knife – came up after Rowe described her decision to bear Michael’s kids.

She said the “Thriller” singer was “devastated” when Lisa Marie Presley filed for divorce in 1996, and she wanted to ease his pain. Rowe said she asked him what made him “saddest,” and he said it was the fact they never had kids.

“I said, ‘Let me have a baby with you,'” Rowe told the Los Angeles jury. “It took him a couple weeks going back and forth, thinking about it, and we talked about it.”

Rowe never elaborated on how they pursued conception, but she described in intimate detail the afternoon she rode her Harley Davidson motorcycle across the San Fernando Valley to meet Michael on the Van Nuys Airport set of his 1996 short film “Ghosts” and break the baby news.

Michael was getting ready to do a shoot, she recalled, but she convinced him to hop on the back of her Harley so they could find a private spot to talk.

“I said, ‘You’re going to be a dad!’ I was pregnant,” Rowe recalled. “He was so excited, he ran around the tarmac screaming.”
She said Michael recorded cassette tapes that she would play on headphones over her pregnant belly so the baby would know his voice.

“He was amazing,” she said of Michael’s performance as a new dad for Prince.

Rowe said Michael was equally over the moon when he learned that Paris was on the way.
“I told him, ‘You’re going to be so whipped,'” Rowe testified. “Before anyone knew I was pregnant with this baby, he was shopping for clothes.”

Rowe said she had no regrets about “leaving” the kids with Michael when their 3-year marriage ended in divorce in 1999.
“Michael wanted to be a father. I didn’t sign on to be a mom. I loved him very much and I still do,” she said, breaking down in tears. “I wanted him to be a father, I wanted him to have everything that he didn’t have growing up, wanted him to experience it with his own child, his own children.”
She agreed with Katherine’s lawyer that she “never” would have left the kids with Michael if she thought he was “a drug addict.”

In testimony Wednesday, Rowe portrayed Michael as the victim of unscrupulous doctors who tried to capitalize on his fear of pain and curry favor with copious amounts of narcotics.

She said the one doctor she trusted was internist Dr. Allan Metzger, the man who would act as Michael’s best man at their 1996 wedding in Sydney, Australia.

But under questioning by AEG’s lead lawyer Marvin Putnam, Rowe admitted that it Dr. Metzger who sent two German anesthesiologists to Michael’s Munich hotel room in 1997 to give the singer 8-hour anesthesia infusions to help him sleep.

She said Michael was desperate for sleep and told Metzger that Xanax wasn’t strong enough to do the job.
“He said he was at the end of his rope, he didn’t know what else to do,” she testified Wednesday.

“I said, ‘What happens if you die?'” she recalled. “(But) I don’t think he was worried about it. He was just more worried about not sleeping.”
Rowe said she stayed for much of the overnight treatment with propofol but had to go back and forth to care for 5-month-old Prince.
When Michael woke up, he claimed he was in better shape, she recalled.
“He said he felt better,” she said.
Under questioning by Katherine’s lawyer, Rowe said the treatment didn’t appear to be a dark secret.
She said the doctors brought their equipment through the front door of the hotel with the help of security.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertain…icle-1.1428194

Here is Thomas Mesereau on the AEG trial:

PART 3

THE THRILLER OF MICHAEL JACKSON’S LIFE

But the best coverage of the period described above came from Michael Jackson himself.

It is a leaked film about making Ghosts (1996) which covers exactly the time we’ve been talking about and the period when Debbie got married to Michael Jackson.

Actually the episode where she takes Michael by her byke to tell him about her pregnancy is even part of this film.

The film is full of magic, ghosts, skeletons dancing and walking on the walls, and Michael explains the idea of it:

• We wanted this type of approach – the fun of being afraid. A roller coaster ride. All kind of emotions.

But what Michael did not know of is that the film would turn into a kind of a prophesy mapping out the incredible events to take place in his and our future. Indeed who could imagine that Michael would first show us his skeleton and skull in the literal meaning of the word, and then would come back to dance and talk to us again – at least in this film? And say things which makes it sound like he knew them of advance?

“He is Mr. Right wing. He is Mr. Establishment. He is the guy who none of us like” – Stan Winston, director of the film

For example the fact that Mr. Establishment personified by the Mayor in the film will one day discover something of Michael Jackson inside himself and will be forced to dance the way Michael did and to his music too?

• “I play that fat, grotesque, ridiculous Mayor. And I say it that way because those kind of people are so stubborn, they just don’t see the beauty of the inside of the person. The Ghost gets inside of me. His spirit compels me to move in a certain fashion and that’s difficult because when I move I’m fighting against what’s inside of me. 
• I tell to the town people: “I’m okay. I’m the Mayor, everything is fine. And then something starts to happen inside of me. I’m like fighting all the time.”

Indeed, now that people begin reflecting on Michael Jackson’s life it seems that the collective Mr. Establishment is beginning to fight his own former self and doubt whether he was right in the way all of them treated Michael…

And who could expect that after his death Michael would talk to us from the screen and encourage us to be bold and innovative, and say “yes” even when everyone else says “no”?

• “I like pioneering. That’s what exciting – a new idea. Something fresh and innovative, and that’s what I want to do. I don’t like repeating myself at all.  If the whole world says No, you say Yes!”

“Back to the surface, you freak? Do yourself a favor. Don’t force us to be rough with you. Go away!”

I watched the film and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Michael was explaining his life and said that all of it started with Mr. Establishment challenging and threatening him:

• “Back to the surface you freak? Do yourself a favor. Don’t force us to be sick and rough with you”.

Maestro is incapable of hurting anyone at all, but he had no other way out but challenge these people back:

“When they start to challenge me they make me territorial, really,  and I start to challenge them back.”

• “Here is a guy which is myself, that I am playing. He doesn’t really want to hurt anyone or offend anyone, bu they find him a bit strange and eccentric and “weird”. The older people do, the grow ups.” 

• “When they start to challenge me they make me territorial, really, and I start to challenge them back.

• And I do all these wonderful things that is like magic because I am really trying to scare this mayor who is a creep. He is a real creep, and I don’t like him”. 

Stan Winston, the director of the film adds to it:

• “Michael plays himself – the Maestro, the Ghost. Nice people he scares a little bit – for fun. And nasty people he scares a little harder which is what we’re doing to the Mayor”.

While the first part amazes you with Michael’s approach to all the nastiness he had to cope with – which you never expected to hear from him, especially after his death – the second part of the film is the example how tirelessly he worked on each of his movements and how long it actually took to create a dance.

You think that it is already over but he repeats it again and again in complete silence to the sound of the beat only, and even take 32 is not yet the final one.

“I play the skeleton”. The costume had markers for a skeleton dance

You see him dancing, you see him tired, you see him waiting, you see him lying on his side, you see him serious, you see him fooling about –  you see a lot of him the way you have never seen him before.

He will also take his hat off and even show himself with some short hair on his poor head. And all this time he will be wearing a tape on his nose.

But whichever way you see him the sight of it will be fascinating  and you won’t be able to take your eyes off the screen.

“I hope it makes you laugh and I hope it makes you cry”

And the first part of the film will end with Michael addressing you directly.

He will speak with a shy smile on his face and say things which will sound terribly symbolic, amazing and a little bit hair-raising.

At least to me it looked like he was talking not about the film but about his life:

I hope you enjoy it.

I hope it’s inspiring to a lot of people.

I hope it scares you.

I hope it makes you laugh and I hope it makes you cry.

That’s all I wanted to achieve.

Just some real fun entertainment. 

No, Michael’s often tragic life is absolutely no entertainment for us, but a big thriller it sure is.

* * *

Here is the full transcript of Debbie Rowe’s second day of testimony thanks to the efforts of TeamMichaelJackson.

No more transcripts will be posted beginning next week for lack of funds. If you want to help, donations can be sent via paypal to manager@teammichaeljackson.com

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