Personal relationships of Michael Jackson

The personal relationships of Michael Jackson have been the subject of public and media attention for several decades. He was introduced to the topic of sexual activity at the age of 9 while a member of the Jackson 5. He and his brothers would perform at strip clubs, sharing the bill with female strippers and drag queens, and the sexual adventures of his brothers with groupies further affected Jackson's early life. It was reported that his first girlfriend was actress Tatum O'Neal, when he was a teenager in the 1970s. However, Tatum O'Neal had stated that their relationship was strictly platonic. In recent years, singer and actress Stephanie Mills had revealed herself to be Jackson's first girlfriend, their relationship starting when they first met at the production of The Wiz. Jackson was then rumoured to have entered a platonic relationship with actress and model Brooke Shields in 1984. Shields later stated that they both held an equal admiration for each other, but that he started to become more asexual and distant towards her.^[1]

Having first been introduced to Lisa Marie Presley by her father's backup singer, Myrna Smith, in 1974, Jackson reconnected with Lisa Marie in November 1992.^[2] Shortly after becoming involved with her, in 1993. Presley supported Jackson as he became dependent on pain medication, and eventually helped convince him to enter drug rehabilitation. In a telephone call, he proposed marriage to Presley. She agreed, and the two wed on May 26, 1994, at a private ceremony in the Dominican Republic. Married life for the couple was difficult, and the union ended in divorce in August 1996. Presley and Jackson continued to date, on and off, for four more years after their divorce.

Throughout his marriage with Presley, Jackson maintained a friendship with Debbie Rowe. She was the assistant of the pop singer's dermatologist and had been treating his appearance-changing disease vitiligo since the mid-1980s, and while he was separated from but still married to Presley. Rowe suffered a miscarriage and lost their baby in March 1996. Following the ordeal and the finalization of his first divorce, Jackson wed the pregnant Rowe on November 15, 1996, in Sydney, Australia. From the marriage, two of Jackson's three children were produced: son Michael Joseph "Prince" Jackson, Jr. (born February 13, 1997) and daughter Paris-Michael Katherine Jackson (born April 3, 1998). Jackson and Rowe divorced in April 2000, with Rowe giving full custody rights of the children to Jackson. His third and final child, son Prince Michael Jackson II, was born to an unnamed surrogate mother on February 21, 2002.

In July 2009, it was revealed Jackson's will named Diana Ross as the next-in-line guardian for his children, after his mother, Katherine.^[3] In September 2009, Rabbi and author Shmuley Boteach released a book titled The Michael Jackson tapes, based on taped conversations he had with Jackson in 2001.^[4] It included Jackson's thoughts on personal relationships in general and specific ones. His romantic feelings for two famous friends were widely cited in the media; when asked if he got jealous when his long-time friend Elizabeth Taylor dated other men, he replied, "Yes and no. I know that if we ever did anything romantically, the press would be so mean and nasty and call us the Odd Couple. It would turn into a circus and that's the pain of it all."^[5][6] It is speculated that Jackson might have dated nine women throughout his career, apart from Lisa Marie Presley and Debbie Rowe, including former model Tatiana Thumbtzen and Taylor, per various media outlets.^[7] In 1993, Jackson was accused of sexually abusing the child of a family friend. The lawsuit was settled out of civil court; Jackson was not indicted due to lack of evidence. In 2005, he was tried and acquitted of further child sexual abuse allegations and several other charges. The FBI found no evidence of criminal conduct on Jackson's behalf in either case.