MICHAEL Jackson's ex-wife has vowed to fight for custody of the pop icon's children as footage of one of the star's final rehearsals surfaced, appearing to show the singer in good health just two days before his sudden death.
As funeral plans took shape one week after Jackson's demise, legal battle lines over the King of Pop's legacy were drawn on the fate of his offspring, with ex-wife Debbie Rowe declaring she planned to seek custody of the star's eldest two children.
Rowe, who has remained largely silent since Jackson died from an apparent cardiac arrest on June 25 aged 50, told NBC television in LA on Thursday that she would seek custody of Prince Michael, 12, and Paris, 11.
"I want my children," Rowe was quoted as saying in a 90-minute phone interview with the station. "I am stepping up. I have to."
Rowe, who was married to Jackson between 1996 and 1999, was omitted from a 2002 will filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday in which Jackson named his 79-year-old mother Katherine Jackson as guardian.
Jackson's mother had already on Monday been appointed temporary guardian of the two children and their seven-year-old sibling, Prince Michael II or "Blanket", who was born to an unidentified surrogate mother.
Rowe filed a petition in 2001 to give up her parental rights but later reversed her decision and secured visitation rights.
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