Total Entertainment: Friends, family celebrate Michael Jackson's life at memorial

LOS ANGELES (AP) ―It was not spectacular, extravagant or bizarre. There were songs and tears but little dancing. Instead, Michael Jackson's memorial was a somber, spiritual ceremony that reached back for the essence of the man.

Singer, dancer, superstar, humanitarian: That was how the some 20,000 people gathered inside the Staples Center arena on Tuesday, and untold millions watching around the world, remembered Jackson, whose immense talents almost drowned beneath the spectacle of his life and fame. If there was a shocking moment, it came in the form of Jackson's daughter, Paris-Michael, who made the first public statement of her 11 years.

"Ever since I was born, Daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine," she said, dissolving into tears and turning to lean on her aunt Janet. "And I just wanted to say I love him -- so much."

"Being judged, ridiculed, how much pain can one take?" his brother Marlon asked in one of the more direct references to Jackson's difficulties, which included standing trial in 2005 on charges of child molestation. It is still unclear whether drug use contributed to his sudden death June 25 at age 50. Instead, mourners sought to uplift and celebrate, revering his hits and his cross-over appeal that they said had paved the way for other entertainers. But it was enough of a spectacle to draw a media blitz befitting a papal visit, with 2,500 credentialed journalists. Local news helicopters broadcast the police-escorted funeral procession. Inside the darkened hall, an ABC News crew desperately tried to light a correspondent's face with their cellphones for a live shot as the memorial got under way.

The day's events were carried off with the secrecy of a military mission, with conflicting reports over whether Jackson's body would even be present at the arena. Chief William J. Bratton called those reports "rumor" only to concede an hour later that the body would be at the Staples Center for the memorial. Once the ceremony was over, however, nobody but perhaps the family and closest friends seemed to know where Jackson's body went.

Earlier, a private service was held at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Hollywood Hills cemetery Jermaine Jackson has expressed a desire to have his brother buried someday at Neverland, his estate. Two of Jackson's closest friends, Elizabeth Taylor and Diana Ross, sent regrets that they could not be at the memorial, Taylor via Twitter and Ross in a statement read by Smokey Robinson, saying they preferred to grieve privately.

Also absent was Debbie Rowe, the mother of two of Jackson's three children, including Paris. She has not said whether she would seek custody against the wishes of Jackson, who had named his mother as their guardian, or failing that, Ross.There were awkward, unexplained moments during the ceremony. Robinson appeared on stage and read Ross' statement and a tribute from Nelson Mandela and then, for several minutes, the arena fell silent but for the yammering of reporters into cellphones and occasional whispers wondering what was going to happen next.

Finally, accompanied by piano, the Andrae Crouch Choir, which had performed on Jackson's 1988 hit "Man in the Mirror," sang one of several gospel or gospel-like numbers in a program that producers said Jackson family members, led by matriarch Katherine, had largely designed. The Rev. Al Sharpton, in a rousing sermon, said Jackson had created a "comfort level" that opened the way for the achievements of others, including "a person of color to be president of the United States.