US: Michael Jackson's ex-wife told jurors yesterday that the entertainer was surrounded by "opportunistic vultures" out to take advantage of a man she knew privately to be kind, selfless and "generous to a fault".
The testimony by Debbie Rowe, the mother of Jackson's two oldest children, was a setback to prosecutors who had called her as a witness to link the 46-year-old entertainer to an alleged conspiracy to imprison the family of a then-13-year-old boy who accuses him of sexual molestation.
Jackson, 46, faces charges of holding the boy's family at his Neverland estate and bullying them into making a video-taped interview singing his praises in early 2003, just as his public image was unravelling in the wake of a televised documentary in which he defended his practice of sharing his bed with children.
Rowe, who never lived with Jackson but was married to him from 1997 to 1999, also filmed a nine-hour interview as part of Jackson's public relations effort at the time, but she denied her answers were scripted, contrary to the earlier assertion by prosecutors.
Rowe said she had participated in the video after taking a call from Jackson himself and had hoped to restore a relationship with their children, Prince Michael and Paris.
Jackson, she recalled telling police, was "easily manipulated, especially if he's scared". "There are different Michaels. There's my Michael," Rowe said tearfully, "and then there's the Michael that everyone else sees."
Jackson, who has pleaded innocent, faces more than 20 years in prison if convicted of all 10 criminal charges against him.