Debbie Rowe, the mother of Michael Jackson's two oldest children, is engaged to the King of Pop's longtime friend Marc Schaffel just a few weeks after telling him no.
Rowe, 55, reportedly turned down Schaffel's initial proposal three weeks ago because she thought she might have cancer.
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"I had gone into the hospital before and they were worried about cancer and
I didn’t feel that I could say yes knowing that," Rowe told TMZ last week. "Now I don’t have cancer and I'm excited and I'm getting married."
It turns out Rowe has a nonlife-threatening autoimmune disorder called sarcoidosis.
"[Last week] I went to see Dr. Fuller and he said, 'You're good. You're good to go,'" Rowe said. "I drove up to [Marc's] house and I said, 'OK, I'm here and I'm gonna be here for awhile, so I'm gonna marry you."
The couple reportedly met years ago when Schaffel was working as Jackson's business manager and the friendship eventually blossomed into a relationship.
Rowe and Jackson were married from 1996 to 1999 and had two children together — Michael Joseph "Prince" is 17 and Paris-Michael Katherine is 16. Jackson also fathered a third child, Prince Michael "Blanket," via a surrogate in 2002.
Rowe said her children like Schaffel.
"They've known him since they were little," she told TMZ. "They like him a lot."
The celebrity gossip site is also reporting that
Rowe plans to make a bid for custody of Jackson's two oldest children, who currently live with their grandmother Katherine Jackson.
Jackson died June 25, 2009, at age 50 of cardiac arrest brought on by an overdose of propofol.
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