A public memorial service for the so-called King of Pop Michael Jackson has been set for early next Tuesday at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
The event will be held July 7 at 10 a.m. at the downtown Los Angeles arena, which holds 20,000, according to a statement released by the Jackson family’s publicist.
Eleven thousand tickets for the event will be made available to the public for free, according to Randy Phillips, the chief executive of AEG live, which owns the Staples Center and promoted Jackson in the days leading up to his June 25 death.
It was not clear early today whether the arena’s other 9,000 seats will be used for the memorial. More details about the logistics of the service are expected later today.
Los Angeles city officials are already wary about securing the Staples Center, which is likely to become the meeting place for a mass gathering of Jackson fans eager to pay their respects to the fallen star.
Los Angeles City Councilman Dennis Zine told The Associated Press he wished there had been more time to work out the logistics.
“If you can imagine 100,000 people show up and you have 20,000 capacity, there is not sufficient room,” Zine told the AP. “Now you have a crowd-control problem.”
Zine went on to say that the holiday weekend makes it “the worst time to work something out.”
There has been no word yet on who will fund the extra police presence that the huge crowd is expected to require.
The memorial plans were announced a little more than a week after Jackson was rushed to the UCLA Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Earlier today, law enforcement sources have told ABC News they discovered the powerful sedative propofol in the home where the pop icon lived and suffered fatal cardiac arrest.
Jackson Custody Battle Ongoing Amid Memorial Plans
While the city of Los Angeles prepares for what could very well be one of the biggest public memorials in history, a custody battle swirls around the fate of Jackson’s three children.
In Jackson’s will, filed earlier this week in Los Angeles Superior court, the pop star expressed his wish that his mother, 79-year-old Katherine Jackson, be granted custody of the three children. He also named singer Diana Ross as a backup guardian if Katherine died or was unable to take care of the children.
But on Thursday, Jackson’s ex-wife Debbie Rowe said that she would fight for custody of the two older children.
“I want my children,” Rowe told KNBC-TV in Los Angeles.
Rowe, 50, married Jackson in 1996 after meeting him while working as a nurse in the office of Jackson’s dermatologist, Dr. Arnie Klein. She conceived son Prince Michael I, 12, and daughter Paris Michael Katherine, 11, through in vitro fertilization.
In his will, Jackson specified that none of his estate should go to Rowe.
On Thursday, new details emerged about Jackson’s living trust in which Jackson had placed his estate.
Jackson’s trust divides all his money and assets among his three children, his mother Katherine and various children’s charities, a source familiar with the estate told ABC News. He left nothing to his siblings, his father Joe Jackson or anyone else, according to the source.
Katherine Jackson will get 40 percent of his assets, and Jackson’s three children will get another 40 percent. The remaining 20 percent goes to several children’s charities that will be designated at a later date, a source close to the estate told ABC News.
The will made public Thursday puts all of Michael Jackson’s property into this trust, which is not public.
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