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Michael Jackson: Children
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Jackson was born the seventh of nine children in Gary, Indiana to Joseph and Katherine Jackson. The entire family lived in a tiny two-bedroom house., and Jackson's father Joseph Jackson earned a meager living working in a steel mill. Jackson and his sister LaToya both claimed that their father was cruel and physically abusive to his children. Jackson broke down and wept during a television interview when asked about this, and said that even as an adult just meeting his father often made him physically ill.
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In 1994 Jackson married Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of Elvis Presley; the marriage lasted less than two years, ending in divorce. In 1996 he married Debbie Rowe. They had a son, Prince Michael, and a daughter, Paris. They were divorced in 1999. Rowe said that she let Jackson have the children as a "gift". Around February 2002 he had another son, Prince Michael II... called "Blanket", with a surrogate mother whose identity has not been disclosed.
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Jackson's inability to parent certainly appears to have roots in his own peculiar childhood. While that helps explain his behavior - it doesn't excuse it. Being beaten with a belt was damaging to Jackson. Who knows what scars his children will have from being forced to wear masks and veils in public. Michael Jackson will probably never beat his children with a belt. His peculiar self-centered immature form of love may be just as damaging to them. Authorities are now investigating.
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Jackson entered the '90s as the biggest pop star in the world, but his life, at least publicly, had become quite a circus. He seemed to spend a lot of time at his Neverland ranch, often entertaining children there and sometimes inviting them to sleep over. In 1993 he was accused of child molestation, a case the singer eventually settled. A highly scrutinized marriage to Lisa Marie Presley followed. More sexual abuse charges surfaced in 2003, resulting in a notorious trial and acquittal in 2005.
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Even if Jackson beats the charges, he has lost badly in the court of public opinion. The public has long memories and even longer tongues when it comes to the emotionally hyper-charged issue of child sexual abuse. The rumors, whispers and doubts that plagued him in the years before, and the decade after a multi-million dollar court settlement he made with a child sex accuser in 1993 will again plague him for years to come. But Jackson can't be absolved of blame for playing fast and loose with the public's justified horror of child sexual abuse. All it took was the still to be proven word of a 12 year old that Mike is a child molester and sex abuser, for former fans and a once fawning public to believe that a bleached black man who for years made his living grabbing his crotch before millions could do terrible things to children.
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At the behest of their moter Katherine, the Jackson children were raised as Jehovah's Witnesses and practiced door-to-door evangelization. Jackson continued to do so after becoming famous, but then in disguise. His career and flamboyant style led to friction with congregation elders. At one point, his sister LaToya was shunned by Jehovah's Witnesses, and in 1987, he formally left the religion.
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