"He was the father and the mother," Tohme said. "He washed them and dressed them. I'm a father but I'm not sure I could do what he was doing with his children. They loved him so much."

Of course, even Jackson's closest friends are at a loss to explain what for many is the single most memorable image of Jackson as a father: the shocking moment when he dangled Blanket, then an infant, over a hotel balcony in Berlin, showing the baby off to fans with a delighted grin.

"What made that incident so inexplicable was that he was an OVER-protective father," Boteach says.

Others who've been close to Jackson in the past agree. When the children stayed in hotels, says one photographer who spent several years working for Jackson, his handlers had long lists of all the foods the children could and could not eat. He was afraid of allergies but also poisoning, says the photographer, Ian Barkley. At the ranch, Jackson would not let the children roam far for fear of coyotes, he says.

When Barkley spoke to the kids himself, he was impressed. "Paris and (the older) Prince really blew me away with how smart they were. They were really well-mannered and nice." And Jackson made sure they kept up with their studies. "Once I heard him ask the nanny if the kids had done their homework that day, and they hadn't yet and he was really not happy."

Yet Jackson also indulged his children in extravagances — he was known to rent out entire movie theaters so he and his kids could see a first-run movie in peace, said close friend Uri Geller, the entertainer, who accompanied the family on one such outing.

"The times I've seen Michael with his kids, he was simply a great father," says Geller. "When I saw him alone in London, the first thing he said is how much he missed them. I know he loved them, and they loved him."