Michael Jackson memorial service: the biggest celebrity send-off of all time

Michael Jackson’s body, in a golden coffin, took centre stage as an estimated one billion people watched the biggest celebrity send-off of all time.

The singer once said his own funeral would be the “greatest show on earth” and he would not have been disappointed as music royalty turned out at a memorial service for the “King of Pop”.

Many of the 11,000 fans who had won tickets in a global online lottery were reduced to tears as a stellar line-up, including Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, Mariah Carey, Jennifer Hudson, Queen Latifah, and Smokey Robinson appeared in an emotionally charged atmosphere at the Staples Center sports arena in Los Angeles. Jackson’s children sat in the front row of the crowd close to his coffin.

As the family emerged from the cemetery’s Hall of Liberty, Paris clutched the hand of the singer’s mother Katherine, 79, a Jehova’s Witness, and his brothers helped load the coffin, covered in red flowers, into a plain black hearse..

It was then driven 11 miles to the memorial service escorted by the California Highway Patrol. A helicopter had been on standby in case the roads were blocked by traffic.

It was not clear where the body would be taken after the memorial service, although it was likely to go back to Forest Lawn for burial.

Jackson’s grave would remain secret as the cemetery never reveals the resting spot of its famous clients and some areas are closed off to the public.