EVENT OF THE YEAR

M.J.'s Star-Studded Memorial

Jackson family says goodbye in private service.

As more than 1.6 million fans prepare to attend Michael Jackson’s funeral at the Staples Center on Tuesday, the people who knew him best may have already had their chance to say goodbye. Last night, at Forest Lawn Cemetery, members of the Jackson family paid their respects to Jackson in a private service, where a casket wrapped in a blue cloth was seen being unloaded and reloaded into a hearse. But the public sendoff will be a much bigger affair: Usher, Stevie Wonder, John Mayer, and Mariah Carey along with Jennifer Hudson, Smokey Robinson and Lionel Richie are all set to perform at Tuesday's public service. Also expected are Jackson’s long-time friend (and once-rumored fling) Brooke Shields, Martin Luther King Jr. III, Reverend Al Sharpton, as well as Kobe Bryant and Magic Johnson, the latter of whom appeared in Jackson’s music video for “Remember the Time.”