Michael Jackson was perhaps the most exciting performer of his generation and owns many of the recording industry's most prestigious awards, but Jackson's career as an artist was often overshadowed by his circus-like personal life.

Here's a quick look at his married and family life.

Jackson united two of music's biggest names when he married Elvis Presley's daughter, Lisa Marie, in 1994.

Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley had first met in 1975 during one of the Jackson family engagements at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino and were reconnected through a mutual friend in early 1993.

Jackson and Presley stayed in contact frequently over the telephone even as child molestation accusations against Jackson surfaced.

Jackson proposed to Presley over the telephone in the fall of 1993, and the two married in the Dominican Republic in secrecy; the parties denied they had been married for nearly two months.

Jackson and Presley divorced in 1996; but remained friendly.

Later that year, Jackson married Deborah Rowe, a former nurse for his dermatologist. They had two children together: Michael Joseph Jackson Jr., known as Prince Michael, now 12; and Paris Michael Katherine Jackson, 11. Rowe filed for divorce in 1999.

Jackson also had a third child, Prince Michael II, now 7. Jackson said the boy, nicknamed Blanket as a baby, was his biological child born from a surrogate mother. The mother's identity was never released by Jackson.