6.5m Brits watch the tributes, tunes and tears at Michael Jackson memorial service
Captive audience: Audience watches the Michael Jackson memorial live on a big screen in downtown LA
A global audience of up to a billion
people tuned in last night as michael jackson was given a true
Tinseltown send-off at a celebrity-packed memorial service.
BBC2
cleared its schedule for nearly three hours to show the event, which
saw the golden casket containing the singer's body take centre stage at
the Staples Center, in Los Angeles, in front of an 18,000-strong
congregation.
The Corporation also
showed the funeral service, which featured tearful tributes from Brooke
Shields and Smokey Robinson, and performances from Mariah Carey, Lionel
Richie, Jermaine Jackson and Britain's own Shaheen Jafargholi on its
rolling News Channel.
Five also covered the ceremony for two-and-a-half hours, along with the Sky Arts channel.
In
total, more than 6.5m people in Britain watched Jacko's final farewell,
from the moment the family arrived at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park,
along the cavalcade of limos to the Staples Center and through the
service to the casket's emotional removal by his grieving brothers.
BBC2 scored the biggest figures, with 4.5m tuning in, Five pulled in 1.2m and Sky News 897,000.
Meanwhile
today, it has been revealed there are plans for another memorial show
at the O2 Arena in London, the scheduled venue for Jackson's ill-fated
50 comeback concerts.
The date
earmarked by promoters AEG Live which is looking to recoup an estimated
£30m from its investment in the This Is It gigs is August 29, which
would have been the star's 51st birthday.
A
documentary about the comeback, drawn from more than 100 hours of
footage, is also being considered, along with the sale of merchandise.King of Pop given the tackiest send-off in history
By Paul HarrisLast updated at 3:11 PM on 8th July 2009
There were two circuses in town here yesterday and at times it was hard to tell them apart.
One brought elephants marching trunk to tail through the street. The other brought Michael Jackson's body.
The King of Pop's funeral in Los Angeles broke new ground in questionable taste by having his coffin centre-stage of his memorial service.
Centre stage: Michael Jackson's gold mirrored coffin takes pride of place at the memorial service in Los Angeles yesterday
Tribute: The founder of Motown records Berry Gordy called Jackson 'the greatest entertainer that ever lived'
Final performance: The Jackson brothers gather backstage at the Staples Center
And one that underlined how overwhelming the culture of celebrity has become.
Nearly two weeks after he died, Jackson still had the power to bring everything to a standstill. He also had the capacity to shock.
Front row Jacksons: (from left to right) Rebbie, Janet, Randy, Tito, Marlon, Jackie and Jermaine at the public memorial
Giant screens outside the Staples Centre broadcast his image
ceaselessly to the masses. Police officers joined queues to buy tacky
merchandise at inflated prices. One vendor said she expected to make
$5,000 from the occasion. Did he care, I asked him? 'I don't care now,' he said, patting the dollars in his pocket. Elsewhere, Jackson impersonators moonwalked, fans sang Jackson hits and danced practically everywhere you went.
Ringside: The elephants of the Ringling Bros and
Barnum & Bailey circus will be performing at the Staples Centre
later this week... but took the opportunity to stroll past before the
memorial service
Spectacle: The scene outside the Staples Center
as fans gathered to pay their respects to Michael Jackson at the
memorial service
Procession: The funeral procession for Michael
Jackson heads to the Staples Center after a memorial service for friends
and family at Forest Lawn Mortuary
Everything about the day was pure showbiz...right down to the end of the service when Jackson's children came on stage. His 11-year- old daughter Paris broke down in tears as she told a worldwide TV audience of a billion that her 'daddy' was 'the best father you could imagine'. She added: 'I just wanted to say I love him so much.'
As his brother Jermaine so perfectly summarised it: 'Everything Michael did was so over the top.' Quite so.
His body was driven to the Forest Lawn cemetery and the Jackson clan is believed to have said a personal farewell inside the imposing chapel before returning to the family home briefly.
Tears of a daughter: Michael Jackson's daughter
Paris Michael Katherine is comforted by family members after paying
tribute to the 'best father you can imagine'
Father Joe and Michael's brother Jermaine: The elder Jackson brother sang Michael's favourite song 'Smile'
Only this part of the proceedings resembled a 'normal' funeral. It was, after all, a family mourning its loss and they had repeatedly asked for privacy.
This being America, however, helicopter-borne TV cameras zoomed in on all their tearful hugs and kisses - then tracked the motorcade every inch of the way as if it were an OJ Simpson car chase.
Live commentary was broadcast throughout the 30-minute journey. Away from all the attention, 11 elephants due to take part in an unconnected performance at the stadium tomorrow had been quietly led to their quarters.
The event was being billed as a circus spectacular. It never had a hope of competing with the real thing.
Emotional send-off: Paris Jackson (2nd L),
Prince michael jackson I (R) and Prince Michael Jackson II (aka Blanket)
sing along to their father's charity song Heal The World
Jacko's circus was more about glitter than sawdust. But it could
certainly boast a great deal of last-minute juggling, and, depending on
your point of view, a few clowns. Someone decided it would be in good taste to punctuate the event with images and soundtracks of the singer as he lay in his coffin. You half expected to see the lid swing back for one last goodbye.
There was a sombre standing ovation for the Jackson family when they arrived, but it quickly turned to whooping and cheering as the ceremony got under way.
The Jackson clan is believed to have said a
personal farewell inside the imposing chapel at Forest Lawn mortuary
before returning to the family home briefly.
Single-gloved pallbearers carried the mirror gold casket to a space
reserved between cascading flowers, just a few feet from seated guests,
accompanied by a hallelujah choir singing 'We're going to see the
king...'
Among those who saluted Jackson were his friend Brooke Shields, music mogul Barry Gordy, the Rev. Al Sharpton and basketball greats Magic Johnson and Kobe Bryant.
'This is a moment that I wished I didn't live to see,' Stevie Wonder said before his performance.
The singer Smokey Robinson began the service by reading statements from Jackson's close friends Diana Ross and Nelson Mandela.
British idol: Britain's Got Talent finalist Shaheen Jafargholi was given a standing ovation for his stunning performance
In Moscow, President Obama had told a TV reporter that he recalled listening to Jackson from the age of eight. He said: 'I think we saw it when Elvis died; in a different way you saw it when Frank Sinatra died; you saw it when John Lennon died. There are certain figures in our popular culture that just capture our people's imaginations and in death they become even larger.'
And so the curtain came down on Michael Jackson, who can finally be laid to rest, maybe at Forest Lawn, maybe at Neverland and maybe, according to reports, in concrete to deter grave robbers.
• It has been revealed a Michael Jackson memorial will also be held in London on August 29, on what would have been the singer's 51st birthday. Kenney Ortega, director of Jackson's planned This Is It UK concert, has met family members and other organisers about the event.
Roger Friedman, the Hollywood Reporter journalist who has broken many of the stories surrounding Jackson's death, said the concert will take place at the O2 Arena where the This Is It tour had been due to start on Monday.
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