No kidding–check out this photo of Victoria Rowell and her (bio) daughter.
Well, MJ used it himself on the Martin Bashir interview. He said the kid’s name is Prince Michael II but that he was generally referred to as Blanket.
Rowell herself is biracial, so her daughter, Maya, has 3/4 white ancestry. Her son by Wynton Marsalis, Jasper, presents as African-American.
OK, that makes sense then; I haven’t seen the interview and didn’t know that was the actual origin. I thought it was just a nickname from the “hang the kid out the window” incident that had somehow caught on. My husband was shocked to hear it yesterday on the news, since his only exposure to it as well was the same South Park episode.
Does anyone remember that story from a few years back about the mixed-race fraternal twins? I think that they were born in the UK. One looked totally “white.” The other looked totally “black.” They did DNA testing, and everything was kosher. It just turned out that way. It was news only because it was so remarkable.
Yep. It’s just what people call him.
Strangely enough, I find the fact that his kid is called “Blanket” the least weird thing about the whole story. Sometimes, people just end up with strange nicknames.
ETA–forgot to say–as noted before, a mixed-race child can easily look “white,” but if MJ was indeed the bio father, the chance that all three would turn out with no visible African ancestry is infinitesimal.
Meh, my dad still calls me “Bean” on occassion. No big deal. My cousin still gets
No one is saying that adoptive parents aren’t “real parents”, StaudtCJ. More like, if Jacko didn’t go through the legal channels to formally adopt his children, then there’s gonna be a shitload of trouble for these poor kids.
(And personally, considering what a moron he was when it came to legal matters, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit.)
Kian & Remee Hodgson Pretty cool pictures of the two.
Sure, that’s understandable - I instead thought it was linked to the covering of the kid’s head in public and dangling him over the balcony, which is why it surprised me to hear the nickname used casually.
More anecdotes: I’ve also known two sets of siblings from interracial marriages (with one parent white, the other black) who appeared to be not of mixed race. One set was two brothers; they had very similar facial features, but one had fairly dark skin and short, closely-curly hair, while the other had a very pale complexion and his hair was black and curly in the sense of big ringlets. (He had long hair, I would have killed for a head of hair like that, being a woman whose hair never looked that nice.) The other pair is a brother and sister. The sister has a “medium to dark” brown skin tone, slim facial features (high cheekbones, somewhat narrow nose), and long black hair that is curly in small ringlets and curls (probably processed). The brother has more “coarse” facial features (a thicker nose. broader face), rough skin complexion, very pale skin, and naturally straight medium brown hair.
IF the article does pan out what I don’t get is why didn’t Jackson just use his own sperm?
It’s interesting that Jackson and Debbie Rowe were married in Australia with laws that as a whole don’t really recognize surrogacy or rather they give much power to the birth mother over the donors.
Well we’ll see. I think it’s garbage for the kids. I have nothing against, surrogacy or adoption, I think it’s great that anyone wants to raise kids, but parents should be honest with the kids. “You came into this world because of X-Y-Z”
The last thing to recall is also kids want to know their parent fought for them. The oldest child only has 6 more years till adulthood, court battles could easily drag on till he’s an adult, rendering it mute and a waste of everyone’s money.
Remember you don’t have to win, all you have to do is drag it on long enough to get a settlement and than the person who lost could say to the kid one day, “I loved you and tried to win you back, but the Jackson’s were too powerful.”
Indeed isn’t that the claim of many of Neverlands former employee, they were “hushed up”?
If he really did have body dysmorphic disorder, it’s possible that he didn’t want his kids to look like him, or to have the Jackson genes passed on.
He said that “Blanket” was a term of endearment among his family/employees. Like, “Blanket you” was a good thing or something. It’s not as bad as Jermajesty at any rate.
Maybe he wanted to make sure they’d look white?
Criminy. If I were one of those kids I would like to know who my biological parents are, even if I didn’t have or want a relationship with them.
I bet that Rowe woman comes out of this looking really bad, whatever she did.
You mean she doesn’t already? I saw a clip of her in that other MJ special, the response to the Bashir one, where she came off as scary.
Yup. I mean, it already didn’t look good even way back when. She’s his dermatologist’s (a man who probably wanted to kill himself knowing that Michael Jackson was his most famous walking billboard) assistant, who was obviously paid off to marry him and have his babies (supposedly).
I remember her from the Bashir special (there was more than one?) and I remember her as being kind of funny and fun, with an actual personality and thinking, “Okay, I can’t imagine getting involved with MJ or bearing a child as a kind of a favor and signing away my parental rights, but I can’t understand people being sperm or egg donors either.” Maybe she’s just a dear old friend of his and loves him in her way (I mean, they were married to each other). Maybe she’s good for him – kind of grounded and, well, normal.
Then I saw a clip of her last night and she seemed fairly bitchy and grouchy. She goes on TV to say, “It’s none of your business – leave me alone”? You want to be left alone? Then don’t consent to do TV interviews!
I just don’t get the kids growing up with their 80-year-old grandparents, even if they do have a good relationship with Grandma and their aunts and uncles and cousins. I don’t want them near Grandpa, but I suppose he can’t do anything to them nowadays. Better they stay with family members who are familiar to them than send them to biological parents they don’t know.
I just wonder how ugly the fight over the money is going to get, and how that will affect those kids. Worst case scenario, I’m imagining some kind of “we’re just taking care of you because we want a cut of that money” garbage. But then I read too much Dickens.
There is a (now) retired reporter here in the Detroit area, Amyre Makeupson who I grew up watching. When I found out she was black, I goggled.
Same thing for Lena Horne.
I have no idea of if there are any caucasian genes floating around in either of these women, but I thought I would toss it out there for another Genetics bit.
Seeing as how there have been blacks in North America since 1619 and whites brought them here, the unequal power structure of slavery, and that mixed race people were almost always defined as black until the last couple decades, I’d say it’s almost certain that Amyre Makeupson has lots of white ancestors.
There was just one Bashir special. And then there was a response to that hosted by Maury Povich and put out by Jackson and his people to try to clean up the fallout from the Martin Bashir interview.
As for her being a dear old friend, she was his dermatology nurse. And I’m pretty sure they never actually lived together. And she was okay with him taking the second child out of the hospital right after she was born. I kind of get the feeling no one else would have agreed to do this. Even Lisa Marie never actually had kids with him.
And quite possibly some Native American genes, as well.
Now what is the whole legal status of a baby when you are pregnant and married? I know there is some thing about the husband being considered the legal father, no matter what, right? A friend of mine was asked at her divorce proceedings if she was or could be pregnant, and told that it didn’t matter who the father was, because she was still legally married (she wasn’t pregnant). I’ve heard things like that before.
I’ve also heard conflicting stories about what happens if you don’t list a father on a birth certificate at all (presumably you’d have to list a mother, but apparantly Blanket’s doesn’t!). What are the rules/laws about not listing a father? I’m pretty sure my niece doesn’t have one listed on her bc, so what happens if her step-dad wants to adopt her or something?