Debbie Rowes Rare Outing Amid Family Divisions

She was briefly married to one of the most famous men on the planet, .

But these days, Debbie Rowe lives a quiet life out of the spotlight following their highly publicised divorce more than two decades ago.

On Monday, she looked completely unrecognisable as she was spotted on a rare outing in Palmdale, . 

In photos exclusively obtained by the Daily Mail, Debbie was pictured dropping by a bank branch as she ran errands around the city, hot on the heels of the .

At 67, Rowe looked strikingly different from how she did when she was regularly in the spotlight around the time of her 1996 marriage to Michael.

Yet recently, interest in Debbie has surged following the release of Michael - a biopic charting the pop star's life from childhood to his first solo tour, the Bad World Tour in 1988.

With the film smashing box office records, Lionsgate have greenlit a sequel, suggesting Debbie may be portrayed while the film illustrates his later years. 

Yet it remains to be seen if Debbie will participate in the production of Michael 2, given her children's polarised views on the matter. 

While her son Prince, 29, has supported the biopic, her daughter Paris, 28, has been outspoken in her criticism of the movie. 

Paris is also said to be struggling with the fact she now believes the allegations against her late father after growing close to family of alleged victims.  in 2002, and his mother has never been identified.

In October of 1999, Debbie filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences and dating their separation to July 15 of that year. 

A spokesperson for Michael said at the time that the couple had 'mutually agreed to end their marriage,' and they said that the two 'remain[ed] friends.'

The divorce was finalised in 2000, and Debbie, who had signed a prenuptial agreement with Michael, was paid around $8 million and given a house in Beverly Hills.

After their brief marriage ended, Debbie took a step out of the spotlight and gave up full custody of her children, leaving Paris and her older brother Prince in the care of their father. 

Then, in 2001, Debbie renounced her custody of Prince and Paris to Michael.

During the court hearing, she clarified that the difficult decision was not made because she didn't 'love' her children.

'I do. I think they are adorable,' she said in court, according to the Los Angeles Times. 'They’re his kids. They’re his kids. They are not my kids.'

Debbie essentially stepped out of the picture entirely until Paris was a teenager, which is why the American Horror Stories star has said she didn’t even really know she had a mum growing up. 

'When I was really, really young, my mom didn’t exist in my world,' she told Rolling Stone, recalling that she only started asking questions once she realised 'a man can’t birth a child.'

After Michael died when Paris was just 11, she and her brothers went to live with their grandmother Katherine Jackson.

Because Debbie had relinquished her parental rights, there was no overnight reunion - Paris would reconnect with her mom only later as a teen.

And Paris has been frank that their bond grew slowly rather than like a conventional mother‑daughter relationship. 

'It’s cool having her as a friend,' she said on Red Table Talk, describing their vibe as 'very chill' and noting they share interests like a love of country and folk music and even similar looks.

In 2016, Debbie revealed she'd been diagnosed with breast cancer, with the diagnosis leading her to rebuild bridges with her daughter Paris after being estranged for more than a year.

Speaking on Entertainment Tonight at the time, Debbie shared what an incredible support her daughter had been.

'She's my rock, she's amazing,' she said. 'She's been with me the whole time.'

'She was there. First phone call, [it] took her 30 seconds [to reach out] when she found out,' Debbie confided.

TMZ reported that the cancer diagnosis pushed the two women to mend fences, years after Paris shut Debbie out of her life and refused to answer her phone calls.

However, in 2017, Paris celebrated her mother , proving that bridges between them had finally been rebuilt.

In February, Paris sent fans into a frenzy after sharing a rare glimpse of herself with Debbie. 

Paris took to Instagram to give fans a rare peek at her bond with her mum, posting two cozy snaps - a moment that comes amid her

In the photos, the pair look completely at ease, sharing warm smiles, while Paris lets the moment speak for itself with a one-word caption: 'Lately.'

However, Debbie hasn't been spotted in the company of her son, and it's unclear if she and Prince currently have any kind of relationship. 

There have also long been rumours that the Michael 

Debbie previously stated ex-husband Michael impregnated her artificially with his own sperm. 

Friends of the late musician's family believe The Godfather actor Marlon Brando may have donated the sperm used to conceive his third child, Bigi, previously known as Blanket. 

'It has all kicked off within the wider Jackson estate quite recently, with [siblings] Paris and Prince being told of this development,' a source said.

'It is all very strange, but the pieces of the puzzle seem to all add up. Everyone is trying to get their heads around it.'

Explosive details emerged earlier this year that suggest another person, linked to Marlon, could in fact be the father. You can find out more .

Although Debbie is white, their fair skin and Caucasian looks - Prince's hair was initially blond, while Paris has blue eyes - soon prompted speculation that he was not their biological father.

The idea was strengthened by the farcical lengths Michael took to hide their faces in public behind masks or blankets. 

However, the singer - who was born black despite reportedly lightening his skin with bleaching cream due to his vitiligo - insisted he was their biological father in a notorious 2003 interview with Martin Bashir.

'I used a surrogate mother [for Blanket] and my own sperm cells. I had my own sperm cells in my other two children,' he said. 'They are all my children.'

However, in the same year, biologists and geneticists started telling the media that, although it was theoretically possible that Debbie and Michael had produced light-skinned children, the odds were low.

Reports began to circulate that Michael suffered from a low sperm count and had turned to other men – friends he trusted and admired – to provide him with children.

In recent years, Michael's name was back in the news amid the release of a documentary .

The first part of Leaving Neverland aired on HBO in 2019, focusing on Michael's accusers James Safechuck and Wade Robson, who say the singer .

Michael's career was clouded by rumors of pedophilia from the 1990s onward, but after the allegations were taken to court, he was acquitted in 2005.

Those allegations were nowhere to be found in this year's blockbuster biopic Michael, which conspicuously ends its story shortly before allegations against Jackson first broke in the early '90s. 

The film quickly became the . 

However, critics lambasted the fact it did not address the allegations of child abuse, with the 'sanitised' film currently one of the worst-rated biopics in recent years on review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes.

After debuting with a paltry 27 percent 'fresh' rating on the site (it has since risen to 38 percent), Michael now lags behind the likes of the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown (82 percent), the Robbie Williams biopic Better Man (89 percent), and the Oscar-winning Oppenheimer (93 percent).

The only major biographies it has out performed are the 2024's critically-panned Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black (35 percent) and Ronald Reagan biopic Reagan, which has just 18 percent.