Michael Jackson took centre stage for the last time at a funeral service at which friends and family were given the opportunity to grieve in private.
The ceremony began more than an hour late as guests including 77-year-old Dame Elizabeth Taylor waited in temperatures of 32C for the Jackson family to arrive at the Forest Lawn cemetery in Los Angeles.
Speakers at the event – which was closed to public and TV cameras – included civil rights leader the Rev Al Sharpton, while soul singer Gladys Knight performed.
In contrast to the star-studded public memorial event at LA’s Staples Centre, the funeral was a private affair.
The Jackson family did allow a live video feed of guests arriving, but it was cut as a hearse carrying Jackson’s body arrived. An airborne camera provided by LA broadcaster KTLA, however, continued to run. It showed a coffin covered in white flowers taken to the front of the congregation.
Around 200 guests were thought to have been invited, with fans and media kept away by a heavy security presence. Among those in attendance were actor Macaulay Culkin and Jackson’s former wife Lisa Marie Presley.
The ceremony was due to have commenced at 7pm local time but was delayed by the late arrival of the bulk of the Jackson family.
Jackson’s mother Katherine and the singer’s siblings and his three children – Prince Michael, 12, Paris Michael Katherine, 11, and seven-year-old Prince Michael II – arrived shortly after 8pm. They met the King of Pop’s father Joe Jackson there.
The programmes contained pictures of the singer and opened with words taken from his book Dancing The Dream: “If you enter the world knowing you are loved and leave the world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with.”
According to a report in the Associated Press, the late pop legend Michael Jackson will be laid to rest today in Glendale, California’s Great Mausoleum, which is filled with famed golden-era Hollywood entertainers, including Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, Jean Harlow and W.C. Fields.
A judge ruled yesterday that Jackson’s estate will cover all funeral costs. It was disclosed in court that 12 burial spaces were being purchased at Forest Lawn Glendale, about eight miles north of downtown Los Angeles, but no details were offered on how they would be used.
A great majority of us grew up watching Michael Jackson blossom into the great success that he is (even posthumously). We watched as his melanin faded, his hair went from nappy to bone strait, nose went from broad to slender… But what did not change and only got better with time was his musical talent. Some would argue that his father Joseph Jackson is the driving force to his success, while others would say that he is the one that “ruined” him. However, either way it goes there is not one person who has not been affected by Michaels’ existence unless they’ve been living under ground. Even if you never picked up any of the numerous CDs that he has been involved in throughout his career spanning 40yrs+, he has inspired a generation of artists (singers, songwriters, producers, and artist of all mediums) and been the butt of many comedians’ jokes. Michael broke barriers and opened doors to opportunities that did not exist for entertainers of “color”.
Unfortunately Michaels’ accomplishments have been overshadowed by his seemingly drastic physical transformations and ill-proved accusations of child molestation. The media came up with the epithet “Wacko Jacko” that has haunted him for at least half of his career and only aided many smear campaigns against him. Michael has successfully reached many goals, some which he may not have even intended to. Despite this fact he could not change his heritage which more than likely proved to be his greatest obstacle throughout his career, being a black man.
Michael grew up in an era when white male dominance strongly existed. Racism wasn’t just a distant memory (and still isn’t). He was thrust into the music industry when he was a child all but leaving behind his education unbeknownst to anyone that he was actually beginning his career. Yes, he had his family to lean on but there is evidence that the ties that bind weren’t as strong as he needed them to be. Michael took the lead in a singing group with his brothers (The Jackson 5). Of the youngest there really was no one for him to relate to and then as they got older “creative control” of the product that they were marketing became an issue as well as group management. By the time he was 18 he was involved in making decisions that controlled the financial future of not just himself as an individual, but also affected his entire family.
Eventually Michael chose to move forward into a solo career that led to him becoming an international superstar. He probably invented “the cross-over” plateau that so many artist hope to reach in their career, defining the genre “Pop” and owning it! Radio and music television could not deny the mass appeal that Michael had to the universe and gradually through his talent he broke racial barriers for future artist to come. Michael didn’t just impact the world on a musical level but on a financial level as well. What we did for him, he did for us ten-fold. Made evident through the “Guinness Book of World Records” when Michael was documented as being the most charitable artist in the universe (so I take this time to THANK all those who purchased Michael Jackson paraphernalia during this time, THANK YOU!)
Going into his adult years Michael became a media spectacle that would not be respected. Those he shared his life with on a very genuine level would betray his trust and damage his spirit. Everyone from family, friends, fans, nay-sayers, media personalities, paparazzi, and the like have all speculated on what would have been the “right” way for him to live his life yet have had none of his experiences nor have any of his expertise. Most of us can’t even live our own lives properly yet we feel that we have the expertise to manage someone else’s life; We really need to get a grip. We can’t even manage the thousands that go through our checkbooks how could we ever manage the millions that went through his. Hindsight is always 20/20; Please have the foresight to allow this man to R.I.P. Spend your time speculating on how you can make your life better and not on what he did wrong or where he went wrong. We must all have our individual experiences that allow us to blossom into the imperfect human beings that we are!!!!!!! –> A SILENT MOMENT PLEASE…….
Michael Jackson’s life played out on a world stage, headlines screaming his every move, frenzy following his footsteps. His death, memorial and investigation amplified the delirium and prolonged the anguish of family and fans. On Thursday, he is scheduled to be interred at Forest Lawn Glendale in what will be a hidden monument in a mausoleum made of marble and mortar..”
There will be only silence. No marquees, no spotlights, no paparazzi.
He will be enveloped by the grandeur of the grounds, the majesty of the buildings and the significance of history.
In the Great Mausoleum, he will join Hollywood legends of yesterday like Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, W.C. Fields and Red Skelton, as well as “The Last Supper Window,” a lifesize stained glass recreation of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, and Moses, a reproduction of Michelangelo’s sculpture for the tomb of Pope Julius II in Rome.
On a hilltop nearby, in a building the size of a sports arena, hang two of the world’s largest paintings, “The Crucifixion” and “Resurrection.”
Manelisitii nu s-au saturat sa fure de la bulgari, de la turci, de la englezi, de la greci au inceput sa fure si de mai departe acum, au furat melodia completa a celor de la Jackson 5 “ABC”, bineinteles tot Dan Burusuc.
Oare de ce?
Ca sa isi adune fani? Fanii lui Michael Jackson sa asculte melodia lui Lele?
Eu unu am dat din intamplare de ea pe faimosul youtube, dar sa o lasam asa ca oricum asta este Romania. Jackson 5 Lele
Here’s a great read that makes a connection that didn’t occur to us before: this is the summer that both Camelot and Neverland came to an end, where two artificial fabrications melted like so much sugary-sweet, bad-for-you, rots-your-teeth, ice cream left out in the sun.
Kennedy and Jackson both stayed on the national stage decades after they should have been forced into ignamous retirement. Instead of receiving the tar-and-feathering they both deserved, or being run out of the country Roman Polanski-style, these two were doted on, catered to, and declared “Lion of the Senate” and “King of Pop”, respectively.
In reality, they were “murderer” and “molester”.
That’s how they should be remembered. Not for how long a stint in the Senate one of them did, or how awesome the Thriller album was for the other.
The author of the article linked about is right: these two put themselves above the law, so lost in their fantasy world kingdoms of Camelot and Neverland respectively. Meanwhile, the rest of us living in mundane, real-world “America” were forced to watch endless tributes to two people who, without their fame and fortune, would have spent the majority of their lives in prison.
As more time passes, and as we get further and further away from the MSM-fueled hysteria surrounding their deaths, we hope people start to see the simple truth that there was not much to idolize in either of these men — or their famous, eccentric, omnipresent families.
Last night, my friend Jamilah and I were walking home from a Michael Jackson birthday celebration:
and as we crossed MLK, we saw cops in the MLK Walgreen’s parking lot and decided to watch a bit. We saw two folks getting arrested, one of them after easily failing a sobriety test:
As we were getting ready to walk away, we were approached by a woman who identified herself as Annie, and she launched into a lengthy monologue that we eventually had to beg her to break off. She had some interesting things to say about Michael Jackson being treated as glitz and news fodder to the exclusion of recognizing him as a flawed human (a subject quite dear to Jamilah’s heart); she told us about the social and political aspects of life in Honduras (apparently she was trying to convince Jamilah to do speaking performances describing the ways of life in various parts of the world; she mentioned Uzbekistan as the polar opposite of Honduras); and she complained about how the egg display in the Safeway next door on MLK is set up so that it’s impossible to figure out which kind of egg is which, without picking up the eggs.
I went into the Safeway to get some potato chips, and decided to check the egg display. Annie is right — one really does have to pick up the cartons to see what they are:
