Agence France-Presse

Los Angeles:

Pop icon Michael Jackson barred his ex-wife Debbie Rowe from seeing their children or from talking about his alleged drug use or sex life when the couple divorced, court documents obtained by a website showed Thursday. In return for a multi-million-dollar financial settlement, Rowe agreed to keep silent about the intimate details of the eccentric Jackson’s life, the star is now on trial for child molestation, according to thesmokinggun.com.

The website published a legal document that cited the confidentiality pact. The pact bans Rowe from talking publicly about “paternity, Michael’s mental or physical condition, purported drug use, sexual behavior” or the lifestyle of her children, according to the document filed by Rowe’s lawyer.

Former nurse Rowe met Jackson when she worked for his plastic surgeon and married him in 1996, and bore two children with him in 1997 and 1998 whom she agreed not to contact following their divorce. “There is a reference that mother is not allowed to communicate with the children, Michael or his agents, except to make travel arrangements or to send Christmas, birthday cards and letters to the children,” Rowe’s lawyer Iris Finsilver said in a document dated December 23 last year. Under their divorce settlement, Rowe, gave up custody of the children — son Prince Michael Jr. and daughter Paris — to Jackson and agreed not to communicate with them. In October 2001, she even asked a judge to completely terminate her parental rights, a request that was granted. But in February last year, shortly after Jackson’s November 2003 arrest on charges that he allegedly molested a 13-year-old boy, Rowe began legal moves to regain custody of the two children. Rowe’s lawyer filed the papers containing references to the confidentiality pact as part of the child custody dispute between Rowe and Jackson, who is also trying to keep the confidentiality agreement

secret.