Pool photographer/Getty ImagesThat cloudy rumor mill that is the paternity of Michael Jackson's three children didn't get any clearer this morning when Dr. Arnold Klein, one of the buzzed potential papas, appeared on Good Morning America.
"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."
What he would say about the three children, two of whom are his former assistant, Debbie 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 said. "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 it. 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?"
Enablers, he feels, 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 Dr. Klein participated in the treatment of Jackson's skin diseases—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.
"He was no trouble sleeping in my office, okay?" 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."