Posted on 7/20/2007 6:25:56 PM

Jacko - The King of Prop

By Penelope LaMerde

She said he was the one. But the kid was not his son.

Michael Jackson is threatening to re-enter the public sphere. He’s returned to America after spending the past two years living in Bahrain and Ireland. He’s expected to release a “comeback” album later this year. And the celebrity rags can’t get enough of Jackson’s relationship with Grace Rwaramba, the nanny of his three children. If you don’t know about Rwaramba yet, you surely will as the publicity machine once again goes into Jacko overdrive.

Sounds like a choice entertainment prop. There are two Jackson offerings currently on the table. One involves the Leprechaun-themed amusement park he reportedly proposed to build in Ireland while he was living there in 2006. The other involves the Rwaramba Express, and it’s rolling in high gear. The prop in question asks which of the following three outcomes will occur first, before Dec. 31 of this year:

Jackson and Rwaramba to have a child: +500
Jackson and Rwaramba to marry: +1000
Jackson to appear on Show Me the Money: +1000

The last option is purely tongue-in-cheek; although the prop doesn’t specify which TV show of that name Jackson must appear on, readers in Ireland will recognize the financial advice program hosted by Eddie Hobbs. It is the longest of long shots that Jackson, no matter how cash-strapped, will ever be featured on that show. Neither will he appear on the American game show (cancelled) nor the upcoming Australian version.

Marrying Rwaramba before the end of the year isn’t in the tealeaves, either. She is apparently still married, having wed Stacey Adair in 1995 in what has all the earmarks of a bid to acquire American citizenship. Adair’s whereabouts are unknown, and no records of a divorce have been found. But that doesn’t mean Rwaramba’s relationship with the King of Pop is purely platonic. She is said to be in complete charge of both the children and Jackson himself. In other words, a typical family.

That leaves the favorite on the board at +500. Fathering children is one thing Jackson still has some talent at, and being a Jehovah’s Witness hasn’t prevented him from doing it out of wedlock. His third child, Prince Michael II, was (according to Jackson) born by an unidentified surrogate mother in early 2002. There is one problem, though, from both a handicapping and a biological perspective. If he is to have a child before the end of the year, someone has to already be pregnant. Is Grace carrying Jacko’s love child? Enquiring minds want to know.

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