The Michael Jackson Memorial was held yesterday (July 7th) at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. It was the chance for the world to farewell the superstar who died suddenly on June 25th. Melbourne writer and photographer Emm Bee attended the event on behalf of Undercover. Here is her eye-witnessed report from inside the event:
With heavy traffic conditions and road blocks, and our car being stopped by the highway patrol as the motorcade drove passed, I missed the first few moments of the memorial service but saw the end of Mariah Carey and Trey Lorenz’s rendition of Jackson 5’s “I’ll Be There”.The atmosphere at the Staples Centre in downtown Los Angeles today was both electrifying and sombre. Around 20,000 people joined the family inside for the tribute to one of the greatest performers of our generation. The gleaming gold coffin, topped with roses, was placed at the front of the stage as stars and family paid their respects.
Musical highlights were: Lionel Ritchie’s performance of the spiritual “Jesus Is Love”, Stevie Wonder’s performance of “Never Dreamed You’d Leave In Summer”, John Mayer’s powerful rendition of “Human Nature”, Jermaine Jackson’s performance of Michael Jackson’s favourite song, “Smile” and Shaheen Jafargholi (finalist on “Britain’s Got Talent”) performance of "Who's Loving You".
In addition, the finale was extremely moving. The backing singers from the scheduled London concerts performed “We Are The World”, joined on the stage by a number of children, including Michael's own children, and then followed up with "Heal The World," where stars such as Brooke Shields, Magic Johnson, Usher, Kobe Bryant, Berry Gordy, Smokey Robinson, Shaheen Jarfargholi, and others who had presented or performed earlier in the service, took to the stage as well for a group performance.
Amongst shouts of: “I love you Michael”, “I miss you Michael”, “I’ll see you in heaven Michael”, there were many standing ovations given throughout the memorial, including the ones given to Rev. Al Sharpton as he told Michael’s children that: “There was nothing strange about your daddy. It was strange what your daddy had to deal with but he dealt with it”.
Smokey Robinson and Berry Gordy's spoken remembrances of Michael, and Queen Latifah’s reading of a Maya Angelou’s poem, written for this occasion, called "We Had Him”.
Moments of laughter included: Magic Johnson story about MJ eating Kentucky Fried Chicken; Brooke Shields asking MJ “What’s up with the glove?”
In fact one of the most moving of speeches was given by Brooke Shields who expressed her love and admiration for Michael Jackson, as she emotionally described their friendship as “the most natural and easiest of friendships“ and one where they would just laugh. She joked about how he had a late start to showbiz compared to her own beginnings, teasing him and saying: “You know I started when I was 11 months old, you slacker. You were what? 5?”. Both stars had to grow up quickly but together, Shields said they were just two little kids having fun.
She said how he was called “The King of Pop” but to her he was always “The Little Prince”. She then read from the book, “The Little Prince’ by Antoine de Saint-Exupery to explain how Michael viewed people: "Here is my secret. It is very simple: One sees well only with the heart. The essential is invisible to the eyes". She continued: "Michael saw everything with his heart. Today, although our hearts are aching, we need to look up where he is undoubtedly perched in a crescent moon and we need to smile".
But the most heartfelt moment was from Michael`s daughter, Paris Katherine Jackson, who emotionally spoke about her father: “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."
As “Man in the Mirror” played overhead in the dimmed arena, family members and friends escorted the coffin out, and the crowd was asked to join hands and say prayer.
A moving and respectful tribute -an event I felt honoured to be a part of.
Emm Bee in Los Angeles
