THE ex-wife of Michael Jackson has said she plans to fight for custody of the two children she had with the tragic pop icon.
"I want my children," Debbie Rowe said in a 90-minute interview with NBC television's local network in Los Angeles.
The station reported on its website that Rowe had said she was willing to submit to any testing, including DNA, to prove she was the biological mother of Prince Michael, 12, and Paris, 11.
Rowe also said she was concerned about splitting up the three children, and would be willing to accept custody of Prince Michael II, Jackson's youngest child.
However, she said she did not expect the court to grant her custody of him.
Rowe, who was married to Jackson for three years from 1996, also said she was willing to undergo psychological testing in any custody claim.
NBC said Rowe would also seek a restraining order to keep Jackson's father, Joe Jackson, away from the children.
Last week, Rowe told Britain's News of the World newspaper she did not want to see her children again and never had sex with Jackson, but was impregnated with sperm from an anonymous donor.
"I was just the vessel," she said. "It wasn't Michael's sperm.
"I got paid for it, and I've moved on. I know I will never see my children again."
Rowe, who lives on a ranch in California, said she would not fight for her two children in the wake of Jackson's death because she never developed an attachment to them.
"I was never a good mother ... It was a better feeling giving them to him than it was keeping them as my own," she told News of the World.
"I know I will never see them again. I was never cut out to be a mother - I was no good.
"It's just like I impregnate my mares for breeding. It was very technical,'' she said.
"Just like I stick the sperm up my horse, this is what they did to me. I was his thoroughbred.
"I don't want these children in my life. My children are my animals now."
The pair first met in the 1980s when Jackson attended the clinic of skin specialist Arnold Klein, Rowe said. Rowe worked there and said they were two lonely souls.
"He would come in three or four times a week," she said. "I started talking to him about his divorce [in 1996] from Lisa Marie.
"Michael said that he always wanted children, but she didn't want children with him.
"I was comfortable with him. I offered him my womb. We were close enough that I knew I could offer him that, so I did. It was a gift."
Rowe became pregnant with their first child through artificial insemination and the couple married in Sydney.
The marriage was never consummated, she said. The pair preferred to hang out in bed together reading magazines and watching films "with all the animals around us before the kids were involved".
Their relationship broke down, she said, after the difficult birth of Paris, which left Rowe unable to have more children.
"... He knew I couldn't have kids any more," she said.
"He didn't want anything to do with me. He took the kids.
"The settlement was written up, and he just wanted me to be quiet."
On Monday, a Los Angeles court named the star's 79-year-old mother Katherine Jackson as the temporary guardian of Prince Michael, Paris and Prince Michael II, who was born to a secret surrogate.
A 2002 will filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday revealed that Jackson wanted his mother to gain custody of his children in the event of his death, with soul legend Diana Ross named as a back-up guardian.
Rowe's attorney, Eric George, will be at the custody hearing on Monday to represent her, NBC said.
Memorial service
Rowe's announcement came as the singer's family announced a free memorial service for the late pop icon at the Staples Centre arena in Los Angeles on Tuesday.
Some 11,000 tickets will be distributed free of charge for the event, a public relations firm representing the family said in a statement.
It said the memorial service would take place at 10am local time (0300 AEST Wednesday).
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