Debbie Rowe, the ex-wife of the late Michael Jackson, took the stand Wednesday during Katherine Jackson’s civil lawsuit against concert promoter AEG. Rowe focused on Jackson’s dependence on doctors and how the King of Pop, who died in 2009, feared pain.
“Michael had a very low pain tolerance and his fear of pain was incredible,” Rowe, 54, said, reports People. “I think the doctors took advantage of him that way.”
Jackson and Rowe were together while Jackson was seeing dermatologist Dr. Arnold Klein. Rowe, who was an assistant for Klein, is the mother of Prince and Paris. The couple divorced in 2000. She did go over how the two met during the 1980s when he first started seeing Klein.
While they were together, Rowe said that Jackson was also seeing physician Dr. Steven Hoefflin and the two doctors would try to outdo each other.
“These idiots were going back and forth the whole time, not caring about him,” Rowe told the jury while fighting tears, reports The Associated Press. She added, “The only physician who ever did anything, the only physician who cared for Michael was Allan Metzger,” referring to another doctor who was concerned that Jackson was being prescribed too many medications.
Jackson and his doctors had been trying to fight his addiction to the painkiller Demerol during his Dangerous tour, but the efforts failed when another doctor gave him Demerol while he was overseas.
Jackson’s mother Katherine, who testified last month, is suing AEG, alleging that they showed negligence by hiring Dr. Conrad Murray, the doctor who administered the lethal doses of Propofol that lead to Jackson’s death in 2009. AEG says that it didn’t hire Murray and is not responsible for the “Thriller” singer’s death.
image: Wikimedia Commons
