Update!

Onetime Sperm Donor Dr. Klein: Not M.J.'s Baby Daddy "to the Best of My Knowledge"

Dr. Arnold Klein admits to having anonymously donated sperm, discusses Michael Jackson's children, the King of Pop's alleged drug use, plastic surgeries and final days

By Natalie Finn, Breanne L. Heldman Jul 09, 2009 1:15 AMTags

The lingering questions of just who's the daddy of Michael Jackson's three children didn't exactly get answered today when Dr. Arnold Klein, one of the buzzed-about potential papas, appeared on Good Morning America and Larry King Live.

"I can't say anything about it, but to the best of my knowledge, I am not the father of these children," he told Diane Sawyer. "I can't answer it in any other way. I don't want to feed any of this insanity that is going around."

He took a similar route with Larry King, telling the CNN host, "I still can't absolutely answer that one way or another...The best, to my knowledge, I'm not the father."

Klein did admit to King that he donated sperm at one point—to a sperm bank, and not to Jackson, he said adamantly. And as far as he knows, Jackson and ex-wife Debbie Rowe (Klein's former assistant) consummated their marriage.

What he would say about the three children, two of whom are Rowe's, simply reiterated a message that was driven home yesterday during daughter Paris' impromptu speech.

"I will tell you one thing: These are brilliant children and I want them in no way to be harmed," he told Sawyer. "These are great, wonderful, fabulous children who he loved deeply."

Now, as for the King of Pop's drug use...

Klein insists he is not one of the five doctors currently under investigation for supplying Jackson with the prescription drugs that possibly led to his demise.

"I've not been examined by anyone. I've not been contacted by the police in Los Angeles," he said. "I've given him medication, yes, but you could take all the medication I gave him in a year right now, and nothing would happen to you. I don't want to discuss how I treated him. I didn't give him this crap that they're talking about. I've never prescribed OxyContin in my life. How am I going to prescribe Diprivan when I don't even know how to use it?"

To King, Klein said that he prescribed sedatives for Jackson, but nothing stronger than Demerol.

"I knew at one point he was using Diprivan in Germany when he was on tour," Klein said this evening. "I knew he was using it with an anesthesiologist to go to sleep at night."

"I told him this drug was very dangerous. I told him specifically the dangers of Diprivan…He assured me he stopped."

Enablers, he told Sawyer, are possibly to blame for the star's continued drug use.

"No matter what [Michael] wanted, someone would give it to him," he said. "The very rich and the very poor and the very famous get the worst medical care."

Additionally, he thinks whatever doctors did allow the star such drugs should be punished harshly.

"I say that anyone who makes someone an addict or gives a person potentially dangerous substances directly to them to use is a criminal. It becomes nothing more than a manslaughter or something worse than that."

Because Klein participated in the treatment of Jackson's skin disease—lupus and vitiligo—he was able to witness firsthand the goings-on of the star's cosmetic surgeries. And there were certainly red flags.

"He was at the hands of plastic surgeons who didn't know when to stop," he said. "He didn't ever have a detachable nose...But he felt he was a piece of art, that his face was a piece of art. He wanted it to really be thrilling for people to view it."

However, when the physician saw the star three days before his death, Jackson showed no warning signs of drug-related trouble. Klein had never seen any needle marks on the singer's skin, nor did he consider Jackson emaciated.

"He was no trouble sleeping in my office, OK?" Klein said. "He was not in terrible pain when I saw him. He danced in the office and he danced for my patients. He was very, very happy and dancing."

(Originally published July 8, 2009, at 8:39 a.m. PT)