IN THE END, Michael Jackson was laid to rest with the kind of dignity that eluded him for so much of his frenetic life.
Ten weeks to the day after he collapsed from an overdose of tranquillisers, his coffin was placed in a mausoleum in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park outside Los Angeles on Thursday night. About 200 family and friends attended the service, which was kept free of TV cameras and the paparazzi that were in constant attendance for many of Jackson’s 50 years.
Among the mourners were friends Elizabeth Taylor and Macaulay Culkin, his former wife Lisa Marie Presley, and the lawyer who defended him against child molestation charges, Thomas Mesereau.
The pall-bearers were his brothers, Randy, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine and Marlon. His children – Prince Michael, Paris and Prince Michael II – laid a crown on the coffin.
The body has been placed in Holly Terrace, a mausoleum which is also home to the remains of the likes of Clark Gable. – (Guardian service)