Fans, family, friends and stars this morning paid their last respects to Michael Jackson at a memorial service in Los Angeles.
The King of Pop's golden coffin was at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles following an earlier private funeral.
The memorial opened with the reading of tributes from singer Diana Ross and ex-South African President Nelson Mandela.
Artist Mariah Carrey opened the ceremony with a rendition of the Jackson's Fives "I'll Be There" with Queen Latifah, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie and Usher also made appearances and offered a tribute.
Brother Marlon Jackson at the Staples Centre on the life of his brother the King of Pop.
On being a father, Michael Jackson's daughter Paris.
US State Representative Sheila Jackson Lee on being the world's greatest pop star and giving an insight into a debate to be brought into the US House of Representatives.
Queen Latifah with part of a poem written by world renowned poet Maya Angelo called "We Had Him" for the late Michael Jackson.
Roads were closed off and concrete barriers erected outside the Staples Centre, where Jackson had been rehearsing a comeback show before his sudden death on the 25th of June.
There were cheers from the queue as footage on big screens showed Jackson's coffin, decorated with red flowers, emerging from the Forest Lawn cemetery to be transferred in a black hearse for the service.
Jackson died at about 11 o'clock Fiji Time on the 26th of June, after being rushed to hospital.
The singer was not breathing when paramedics arrived at his Bel Air Home.
Jackson began his career as a child in the family group The Jackson 5.
He then went on to achieve global fame as a solo artist with smash hits such as Thriller and Bad.
Michael Jackson unleashed his pop masterpiece, Thriller, in 1982 which rewrote the rule book on how pop is marketed, not least because of its ground breaking video clips.
The Thriller album is frequently named the biggest selling album of all time, 65 million copies according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
He caused jaws to drop around the world when he debuted the Moonwalk at a Motown television special in 1983.
Michael Jackson defined pop and was also the author of the ever popular “We Are the World.”
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Fans, families, friends farewell King of Pop
