July 7^th marked the official day for the Michael Jackson memorial service. The memorial service was held in the same arena where Michael Jackson was rehearsing for his tour. Many people turned up for the King of Pop’s memorial, including John Mayer, Usher, Mariah Carey, Jennifer Hudson, Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, and Smokey Robinson. All of these artists were performers at the farewell Jackson memorial. This huge event, which was not going to be broadcast, ended up being broadcast live on all major cable channels and networks. Some places like MTV.com and MySpace even ended up streaming it live as well.

A few of the family members and very close friends have been very ambivalent about the event. Although Deborah Rowe, the mother of two of Jackson’s children, was scheduled to appear at the Staples Center memorial, she released in a statement that she would not be going, because she felt it would be an unnecessary distraction from why everyone was truly there.

A longtime friend of Michael, Dame Elizabeth Taylor, said on her Twitter page Monday that she would also not be present at the event. She simply said that she would not be part of this big public event. She went on to say that she felt that Michael would not want her to share her grief with millions of other people.

More than 1.5 million folks from all around the world were more than happy to join in the event after entering a very random drawing for seats at the memorial. Back on July 5, almost 8,750 people received word that they had defied the odds and won two tickets. There were no tickets that went on sale for this event. The ticket holders that got to go started to a arrive at the Dodger stadium at 6 a.m. From there, winners were given wristbands so that people could be ensured that only winners got to go to the event.