Jackson rewarded Rowe with large sums of money for forsaking the children, and money appeared to be a concern when she later tried to obtain custody of them after the singer was accused of child molestation in 2003.
Rowe met Jackson while working in the office of Dr. Arnold Klein, his Beverly Hills' dermatologist. Jackson wanted her to have children for him.
"If someone needs something, I'm there, you know," Rowe said in a televised interview in 2005.
Rowe agreed in 1999 to give Jackson sole custody of the children. The couple's divorce was finalized in April 2000, and she agreed to an $8.5-million settlement, according to court records. She stopped visiting the children six months later because it "was not working out for various reasons," according to an appeals court ruling.
Rowe complained in court records that she had to go through lawyers to send birthday balloons to her children, travel long distances to see them and had trouble getting makeup visits if she missed a scheduled appointment because of an illness.
She also said she was able to see the children only in hotel rooms surrounded by Jackson's representatives.
Despite those complaints, she filed a petition in 2001 to give up her parental rights, asserting that it was in the children's best interest for her to be removed from their lives.
In a hearing before a private judge who was overseeing the matter, she said she was "an intrusion" on the children, who "are going to have enough intrusions as it is."
"I am absolutely around if Michael ever needs me, if the children need me for a liver, a kidney, a hello, whatever," she said.
Rowe told the court she had not seen or communicated with the children in about a year and had no desire to even send them a card.
Asked what would happen to the children if Jackson died, Rowe said: "I am sure he has a wonderful person in mind to take care of them." (A 2002 will left by Jackson said the children should go to singer Diana Ross if his mother could not care for them.)
Rowe, at the time, said she would not want the children back if Jackson died.
"Not that I don't love them. I do. I think they are adorable. They're his kids. They're his kids. They are not my kids."
Rowe later decided to contest her waiver of parental rights, citing the child molestation charges against Jackson as well as his association with the Nation of Islam, "whose members Deborah believed 'do not like Jews,' " an appeals court quoted her as saying.
