In a filing last week, Deborah Rowe’s attorneys said the mother of Jackson’s two oldest children should be awarded $490,000 in general and punitive damages.

Rowe sued Rebecca White in July for White’s comments to the television show “Extra.” White hasn’t responded to the lawsuit and Rowe is seeking a default judgment against the Key West, Fla. resident.

Rowe’s defamation and invasion-of-privacy lawsuit sought to recoup any money that White may have been paid for the interview, which aired in July. Rowe’s attorneys estimated those earnings at $100,000 on a court filing.

They are also seeking $100,000 for emotional distress, $45,000 for medical and attorney’s fees and $245,000 in punitive damages.

A hearing on Rowe’s petition to issue a default judgment against White is scheduled for November.

Rowe has some visitation rights with the two children under an August agreement with the singer’s mother. No money is believed to have changed hands in the arrangement.

Stories aired by “Extra” were based on White’s description of e-mails she said were exchanged with Rowe after Jackson’s June 25 death. Rowe, 50, denies she sent any recent e-mails to White.

White was described in the segments as a “close friend” who said Rowe had emphatically stated in an e-mail exchange that she didn’t want custody of Jackson’s children. Rowe’s attorneys have denied that White and Rowe are friends.

(source)

Michael Jackson is still playing to sellout crowds.

Advance screenings to the music documentary “Michael Jackson: This Is It” sold out within two hours early Sunday as fans who began lining up three days earlier snapped up all 3,000 tickets to the Los Angeles shows.

The documentary opens nationwide Oct. 28, but fans will get a sneak peek the night before in screenings at the new Regal Cinemas Stadium 14. For the theater’s grand opening, the cinema will show “This Is It” on all 14 screens that night.

Directed by longtime Jackson collaborator Kenny Ortega, “This Is It” draws on hundreds of hours of footage as Jackson prepared for a series of London concerts for which he was rehearsing before his death on June 25.

(source)

Previously Unknown MJ Novel Materializes

A novel written by the “King of Pop” himself is currently being shopped around to New York publishers, according to a source in the industry.

The illustrated novel depicts a rock star at the height of his success who becomes disillusioned with money and fame and obsesses about death.

According to the source, the book mirrors Michael Jackson’s own rise to superstardom and self-imposed seclusion, reflecting an inner torment and struggle with personal demons.

Working with a collaborator, the source confirmed, Jackson conceptualized the story line, characters and even the illustrations.

The book is expected to sell in the six figures.

(<a href=”http://showbiznews.info”>source</a>)

Dealing with her older brother’s death hasn’t been easy for Janet Jackson, but she’s finally ready to talk about it.

In the 43-year-old singer’s first interview since Michael’s June 25th passing, Janet opens up in the October issue of Harper’s Bazaar about her pain, the grieving process and how the ordeal made her a stronger woman.

“People can have rhinoceros skin, but there’s a point when something’s going to hurt you,” she tells the magazine. “Not everyone is stone, stone. I haven’t watched the news in weeks. I had to ask my chef, ‘How’s Obama doing?’ I haven’t read a newspaper.”

The last time Janet saw her brother alive was on May 14 at a family event two days before her birthday.

“We had so much fun that day,” she says in the interview. “We kept calling each other after and saying how great it was.”

Janet was in Atlanta, on the set of her upcoming Tyler Perry movie, when she heard the tragic news of her brother’s death.

She immediately flew back to Los Angeles to grieve with her family and was on hand for the memorial service at the Staples Center during which Michael’s daughter spoke.

“I was really proud,” she says. “People said to me that Michael’s daughter speaking really gave them a sense of how he was as a father, in her words. Paris is incredibly smart; they are all so smart. She’s a sweet girl. The kids are doing well. They’re with all their cousins; that family love will keep them going.”

In order to properly mourn the loss of her brother, Janet took a three day beach vacation and then threw herself into her new movie.

The grieving process taught Janet about her own strength too, which she attributes to her mother Katherine.

“Now at least I know that I can step up to the plate and not crumble when I’m needed,” she says. “When it comes to something like this that is so, so serious, so painful, so traumatic, I can handle it.”

Janet will honor her late brother Michael during a special appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday night.

(source)

On the day Michael Jackson died, his personal chef says her first hint of something amiss was when his doctor didn’t come downstairs to get the juices and granola he routinely brought the King of Pop for breakfast each morning.

Kai Chase, a professionally trained chef hired by Jackson to maintain a healthy food regimen, recalled the singer’s final days in an interview with The Associated Press. She also spoke about the role of his personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, who is now the focus of a manslaughter investigation.

Chase said Tuesday that she had gotten used to seeing Murray coming and going from the mansion. The doctor usually arrived about 9 or 9:30 p.m. and would go upstairs to Jackson’s room, and she said she would not see him again before she left – sometimes late in the evening – but understood he was staying the night.

In the morning, when she arrived for work, Chase said she would see the doctor coming down the steps carrying oxygen tanks. When Murray didn’t come downstairs the morning of June 25, “I thought maybe Mr. Jackson is sleeping late,” Chase said.

“I started preparing the lunch and then I looked at my cell phone and it was noon. About 12:05 or 12:10 Dr. Murray runs down the steps and screams, ‘Go get Prince!’ He’s screaming very loud. I run into the den where the kids are playing. Prince (Jackson’s oldest son) runs to meet Dr. Murray and from that point on you could feel the energy in the house change.

“I walked into the hall and I saw the children there. The daughter was crying. I saw paramedics running up the stairs.”

At that point, Chase said, the small group that was gathered – the children, their nanny, a housekeeper and Chase – held hands and began to pray. As paramedics raced up to the room, Chase recalls, “We were all praying, ‘Help Mr. Jackson be O.K.’

“Then everyone was very quiet.”

At about 1:30 p.m. she said security guards told her and other staff to leave the property because “Mr. Jackson was being taken to the hospital.”

When she came outside, she said, ambulances were in the courtyard and a crowd had gathered.

Chase, 37, who has cooked for other celebrities and comes from a show-business family, was hired by Jackson in March, let go in May, then returned on June 2. She said the pop star’s focus was on fresh, healthy food for him and the children.

She said she prepared meals for the family and occasionally for Murray. She said Jackson was in training for his upcoming shows in London and told her: “You have to take care of me.”

On most days, she said, Murray would bring Jackson the special fruit juice drinks Chase prepared for him, followed by granola with almond milk. For lunch, Jackson would eat with the children from a menu that included such things as spinach salad and chicken.

Murray sometimes joined them for dinner, which might be a seared ahi tuna. She said the doctor conferred with her about the 50-year-old pop singer’s food and made sure that he ate.

The only oddity was the oxygen tanks. Chase said she never asked about the purpose of the oxygen and she saw no sign that Jackson was on drugs or was in failing health.

“Normally in the morning, he would bring oxygen tanks from upstairs downstairs, one in each hand,” she said.

Authorities searched Murray’s Las Vegas home and medical office Tuesday as part of an investigation that included raids last week of his clinic and storage in Houston.

With toxicology reports pending, investigators are working under the theory that the powerful anesthetic propofol caused Jackson’s heart to stop, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. Murray told investigators he regularly administered the drug to help Jackson sleep, and had done so sometime in the early morning of June 25, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Propofol is supposed to be administered only in monitored medical settings by trained personnel; the official told AP that Murray left the bedroom and returned to find the star unresponsive. Police have said Murray is cooperating and have not labeled him a suspect, and his lawyer, Edward Chernoff, has said the doctor “didn’t prescribe or administer anything that should have killed Michael Jackson.”

Like Murray, Chase said she was hired to accompany Jackson to London for his comeback concerts and the request was personally made to her by his 12-year-old son, Prince Michael II.

“Prince said, ‘Daddy wants me to tell you he wants you to go to London with us,’” she recalled. “I said, ‘Tell your daddy that I’m pleased and honored.”

She said she had already filled out paperwork and submitted a copy of her passport to the Jackson staff and expected to leave for London on July 3.

On June 23, she said Jackson told her: “I’m packed and I’m ready to go.” Two days later, he was dead.

It was the end of her dream job and an idyllic time in Chase’s life, a time that had begun in March with a call from Jackson’s assistant, Michael Williams. She was told that “a client” wanted her services as personal chef but she was not told the client was Jackson until she was hired.

“I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “I asked him if I was on ‘Candid Camera.’ I said, ‘Am I being punked?’”

She said Jackson had seen her resume which included jobs cooking for Macy Gray and Jamie Foxx as well as catering a fund raiser for President Barack Obama. She said he also knew she was from a multiracial background and her godfather was Redd Foxx.

But before she started she had to pass muster with three other people: the Jackson children.

“I came to the house and the first people I met were the kids. They started interviewing me,” she said. “They told me: ‘We’re into healthy eating.’”

When they approved her, she went to work and “we developed a really great bond.”

Most days, she said, Jackson made a point of having both lunch and dinner with the children, Prince, 11-year-old Paris and 7-year-old Prince Michael II, known as Blanket, and each meal was preceded by Paris saying grace. After weeks of healthy food, she said she wrote Jackson a note with a suggestion:

“I said, ‘What about doing comfort-food Saturdays? We could do barbecued chicken and corn on the cob, maybe Mexican food or soul food.’” She said he loved the idea, but as the concerts approached, healthy eating returned full time.

“He said, ‘I’m a dancer,’ and he wanted food that would not make him cramp up while he was dancing.”

She now treasures little notes she received from the children and from Jackson and a present he gave her.

“One day he handed me a little gift bag and said, ‘This is for you from me and the children.’ He had given me an iPod Touch because the children told him I still had a Walkman. It had the 25th anniversary ‘Thriller’ album loaded on it.”

She said she has visited with the children since Jackson’s death and they are doing well. “They have so many cousins to play with.”

As for Chase’s future, she said Jackson encouraged her to write a cookbook and she has written one tentatively titled, “Fit for a King.” It includes recipes she cooked for Jackson and the story of the time she worked for him.

“He was an inspiration to me,” she said.

(source)

Federal agents searched the home and office of Michael Jackson’s personal physician Tuesday in a widening investigation of whether administering a powerful anesthetic as a sleep aid was so reckless that it constitutes manslaughter.

Such charges against a doctor for the death of a patient would be extremely rare. Authorities would have to show there was a reckless action that created a risk of death.

After a three hour-search of Dr. Conrad Murray’s sprawling home on the 18th hole of a golf course in a private gated community, Los Angeles police and federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents carried away five or six plastic storage containers and several thick manilla envelopes. Across town authorities searched Murray’s medical offices, Global Cardiovascular Associates Inc., seeking documents.

Murray’s lawyer, Edward Chernoff, issued a statement saying the sealed search warrant “authorized investigators to look for medical records relating to Michael Jackson and all of his reported aliases.”

Murray was present during the search of his home and assisted the officers, who seized cell phones and a computer hard drive, Chernoff said.

Though authorities characterize Murray as the target of the investigation, they have stopped short of labeling him a suspect.

Murray told investigators he administered the anesthetic propofol to Jackson the night he died to help him sleep, according to a law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. The official told AP that Murray left the bedroom where Jackson was sedated and returned to find the star not breathing. It’s unclear how long Murray was out of the room.

The official said investigators are working under the theory that propofol caused Jackson’s heart to stop. Toxicology reports that should show what killed Jackson are expected as early as this week.

Propofol typically is used to render patients unconscious for surgery. The drug can depress breathing and lower heart rates and blood pressure.

Home use of propofol is virtually unheard of, and if Murray left Jackson’s side he would have violated guidelines for the safe use of the drug drawn up by the American Society of Anesthesiologists.

Those rules say a physician “should be physically present throughout the sedation and remain immediately available until the patient is medically discharged from the post procedure recovery area.”

In considering a manslaughter charge against a doctor, a patient’s complicity in taking the risk could reduce the doctor’s culpability, said Harland Braun, a prominent Los Angeles defense attorney who has represented doctors in cases involving administering of drugs.

If a doctor is aware of the risk, there might also be an issue of whether the patient knows that risk and decided to take it.

Chernoff has said the doctor “didn’t prescribe or administer anything that should have killed Michael Jackson.” He declined interview requests Tuesday.

The search of Murray’s home and business involved members of the DEA’s Los Angeles Tactical Diversion Squad, agency spokesman Jose Martinez said. The team typically looks into cases involving legally prescribed drugs such as narcotic painkillers that are illegally sold or obtained by people not authorized to have them, such as “doctor shoppers” who get medications from several physicians so they can sell the drugs or feed their addiction.

The Las Vegas searches were the second time in less than a week that investigators targeted Murray’s property. Last week authorities searched his Houston clinic and a storage unit. Court records show they were seeking evidence of whether the doctor committed manslaughter.

Murray, 51, who is licensed in California, Nevada and Texas, became Jackson’s personal physician in May and was to accompany him to London for a series of concerts starting in July.

He was staying with Jackson in the entertainer’s rented Los Angeles mansion and, according to Chernoff, “happened to find” Jackson unconscious in his bedroom the morning of June 25. Murray tried to revive him by compressing his chest with one hand while supporting Jackson’s back with the other.

It took up to a half hour before paramedics were called, Murray’s lawyers have said. The paramedics arrived about three minutes later and tried to revive the pop star for another 42 minutes before taking him to nearby UCLA Medical Center, where Jackson was pronounced dead.

Jackson is believed to have been using propofol for about two years and investigators are trying to determine how many other doctors administered it. Murray told investigators he had given Jackson the drug several times before, the law enforcement official told AP.

As investigators try to untangle Jackson’s complex medical history they have interviewed at least six doctors who treated him and searched records for transactions involving aliases Jackson may have used to get drugs.

The official said Murray directed investigators to a closet in the room where Jackson slept. In it, they found enough propofol and sedatives to fill two gym bags. The room also contained an IV line and three tanks of oxygen, which would be needed for administration of propofol.

(source)

Michael Jackson’s personal doctor administered a powerful anesthetic to help him sleep, and authorities believe the drug is what killed the pop singer, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Monday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said Jackson regularly received propofol to sleep, a practice far outside the drug’s intended purpose. On June 25, the day Jackson died, Dr. Conrad Murray gave him the drug sometime after midnight, the official said.

Though toxicology reports are pending, investigators are working under the theory that propofol caused Jackson’s heart to stop, the official said.

Murray, 51, has been identified in court papers as the subject of a manslaughter investigation and authorities last week raided his office and a storage unit in Houston. Police say Murray is cooperating and have not labeled him a suspect.

Murray’s lawyer, Edward Chernoff, has said the doctor “didn’t prescribe or administer anything that should have killed Michael Jackson.” When asked Monday about the law enforcement official’s statements he said: “We will not be commenting on rumors, innuendo or unnamed sources.”

Murray became Jackson’s personal physician in May and was to accompany him to London for a series of concerts starting in July. He was staying with Jackson in a rented Los Angeles mansion and, according to Chernoff, found an unconscious Jackson in the pop star’s bedroom the morning of June 25. Murray attempted to revive him but could not.

Police searching Jackson’s home after his death found propofol and other drugs, an IV line and three tanks of oxygen in Jackson’s bedroom, and 15 more oxygen tanks in a security guard’s shack.

Propofol can depress breathing and lower heart rates and blood pressure. Because of the risks, propofol is only supposed to be administered in hospitals. Instructions on the drug’s package warn that patients must be continuously monitored, and that equipment to maintain breathing, to provide artificial ventilation, and to administer oxygen if needed “must be immediately available.”

Jackson had trouble sleeping and the official said he enlisted various doctors to administer propofol, relying on the drug like an alarm clock. He would decide what time he wanted to awaken and at the appointed hour a doctor would stop the intravenous drip that delivered the drug, the official said.

(source)

A film featuring the rehearsals from Michael Jackson’s “This Is It” tour is set to hit theaters Friday Oct. 30.

Sony Pictures is in final negotiations to obtain the movie rights for $60 million, $10 million above earlier projections, The Hollywood Reporter’s Showbiz 411’s blog reports. Ninety percent of the money will go the Jackson estate (his three kids, mom, and charities), and 10 percent to AEG Live, the concert promoters.

Footage used for the film was shot at Staples Center before King of Pop died last month from cardiac arrest. The practice sessions were gearing Jackson up for his 50 sold out London concerts that were to begin this month and run through March 2010.

This may now be the only chance for the more than 1 million ticket holders to get a glimpse of what Jackson had in store for the show. Plans for an Aug. 29 tribute show in London, on what would have been Jackson’s 51st birthday, have fallen through for now. The tribute would have featured the band that the pop star was rehearsing with.

Jackson’s dad, Joseph Jackson, reportedly muddled plans for the tribute by shopping his own special to the networks.

(source)