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The body of Michael Jackson — at rest in a 14-carat, gold-plated casket lined with blue velvet — was carried into the Staples Centre in Los Angeles for yesterday’s memorial service and star-studded musical extravaganza, which was viewed by at least a billion people around the globe.
For the United States it wasn’t so much a “Diana moment” as a made-for-TV special. Afraid that millions of fans would cause havoc, and barely able to afford the overtime for its police officers and emergency services, the city’s leaders made it virtually impossible for the general public to take part in the service.
As an expression of public grief, it could not have been further removed from the 1997 funeral and cortège of Diana, Princess of Wales, which drew crowds of up to three million people.
When it became clear that only 50,000 people turned up outside the service — a fraction of the million expected — some wondered if the city had gone too far in telling people to stay at home, and that the showing was too small for the biggest day of public mourning in US history since the death of Elvis Presley.
Even the motorcade of more than 30 cars as Jackson’s body was brought from a “private funeral” at Hollywood’s Forest Lawn Cemetery to the Staples Centre was kept secret until the last minute, so that fans could not line the streets in advance to pay their respects. Instead, the convoy of blacked-out Rolls-Royces, Range Rovers and Cadillacs made its way to the memorial service on closed, empty freeways.
The result was an Oscars-style event that — for those fans not lucky enough to be among the 20,000 guests to win tickets in a lottery or be invited by the Jackson family — could be viewed only on television.
The family’s guest list was a Who’s Who of African-American powerbrokers in music, sports, film and politics: Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Jennifer Hudson, Kobe Bryant, the Rev Al Sharpton, Spike Lee and Wesley Snipes. Most of the guests arrived in limousines and then strolled up a black carpet outside the venue, where fans were taking it in turns to sign two giant posters of Jackson. Notable absentees were Mr Jackson’s ex-wives, Debbie Rowe and Lisa Marie Presley.
Only one guest, Jackson’s daughter, Paris Michael Katherine, 11, sobbed uncontrollably, in perhaps the service’s most poignant moment. “I just wanted to say that, ever since I was born, Daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine. And I just wanted to say I love him so much,” she said.
In a rousing speech that brought applause, Mr Sharpton said: “He brought down the colour curtain. It was Michael Jackson who brought blacks and whites and Asians and Latinos together. It was Michael Jackson who created a comfort level so that people who felt they were separate became interconnected with his music.”
He said that the careers of Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods and President Obama would have been impossible without the singer. “Michael did that, he made us love each other. I want his kids to know: there was nothing strange about your Daddy. What was strange was what he had to deal with. He dealt with it anyway. Some people came here to say goodbye to Michael. I came to say thank you.”
Mr Obama, who was in Moscow for the second day of talks with President Medvedev, took time out to pay tribute to Jackson. He said: “I think like Elvis, like Sinatra, like the Beatles, he became a core part of our culture. His extraordinary talent and his music was matched with a big dose of tragedy and difficulty [in] his private life and I don’t think we can ignore that.”
He said that it was important to “affirm what was the best of him and that was captured by his music”.
Juno Pierre-Louis, 42, a car salesman from New York, who received a ticket for the memorial through the lottery, said: “Off the Wall came out when I was growing up near the Bronx, and the gang movement was big then. But as soon as everyone saw Michael’s moves, people stopped killing each other and starting having dancing competitions instead. So Michael Jackson means a lot to me. [African Americans] tend to walk away from anything that’s embraced by the white community — but today I’ve seen more black folk with the MJ colours on than the white folk.”
Of the 1.6 million people who entered the lottery for tickets to the memorial service, only 8,750 were told via e-mail that they had been chosen. Most received two passes for the service in the form of golden wristbands.
Without a golden wristband, it was impossible to get beyond the massive barriers that formed a huge security perimeter around the Staples Centre. In fact, the perimeter covered such a wide area that it was impossible for uninvited well-wishers to even glimpse the venue from afar.
William Bratton, the Los Angeles police chief, said: “If you’re down here, there won’t be much to see. You won’t get within several blocks of the area.”
With the seating capacity of the venue limited to about 16,000, several thousand guests had to watch the service on a giant video screen outside, along with thousands of journalists, photographers and television camera operators. Overhead, about 20 news helicopters and other light aircraft circled. It is thought that the service cost Los Angeles about $4 million (£2.46 million) — money it can ill-afford in the middle of a state-wide budget crisis.
The Staples Centre, home of the LA Lakers basketball team, was where Jackson had been rehearsing two weeks ago for his much-anticipated comeback tour in London. As soon as the set of the memorial service was dismantled yesterday, the venue was taken over by a circus.
