THE ULTIMATE GROUPIE

A Last Chance For Debbie Rowe, The Loneliest Woman In The World

By Crabby Golightly

SPECULATING ON THE MOTIVES OF DEBBIE ROWE, THE MOTHER OF HIS CHLDREN MICHAEL JACKSON'S CHILDREN, HAS BEEN A SPORT FOR A DECADE.

Now, with the King of Pop all but buried, and a custody battle for his three children looming, the former dermatologist's assistant once more is thrust into the public spotlight.

For a decade, she has paid the price for the ultimate sin -- being a mother who turns her back on her children. And the sentence for her crime has been the public's opprobrium for being a womb for rent. (TMZ, where is that proof that she isn't Paris' and Michael's mom?)

Rowe was once quoted as saying, "I am possessive and protective of my babies. Their happiness means more to me than anything else on this world. I love them more than I would ever have thought was possible." But the love she expressed was for her parrot, 11 dogs, and 30 horses.

When you read interviews with Rowe about her relationship and ultimate sacrifice for Jackson, she comes off as the most desperate sort of groupie: one whose own emptiness and sense of unimportance is temporarily filled by the attentions of someone famous. "He's the genius, the famous one,'' she said in an interview with Britain's Mail. "Not me. I turned out two good-looking kids, but I can't sing, I can't dance." As if dancing and singing had anything to do with raising children.

So when Michael kicked her to the curb because she couldn't bear another child, she took her payout and left. After all, she didn't have the children for herself; they were gifts to the pop star who deemed her worthy of attention.

Now Michael's dead, and Rowe is torn between doing what her head and her heart tell her to do; the task for her is figuring out which is saying what.

Does she have time? Or will she need years on the couch to excavate her truth?

As 10-year-old Paris Jackson is now thrust into the spotlight -- "speak up, sweetheart, speak up" -- and the paps already target her, I miss the masks she and her brothers were forced to wear.

Such a pretty young thing is sure to have a price tag on her head to the family that knows what sells.

Debbie's already sold them once; will she sell them again?