Smokey Robinson read messages from Diana Ross and Nelson Mandela. Mariah Carey and Trey Lorenz performed the song I’ll Be There. And Queen Latifah read a poem from Maya Angelou. “We had him,” Latifah read. “Whether we knew who he was or did not know, he was ours.”

Michael Jackson, the pop star whose life was a complicated tale of celebrity, was honored at a memorial service at the Staples Center as millions watched on live television. He died at age 50 on June 25 in Los Angeles.

The center was filled almost to capacity by fans who had won free tickets in a random lottery, and friends and others who had known him since he began his career singing with his brothers in the Jackson 5.

Berry Gordy, the Motown founder who helped develop the Jackson 5, said of him at the service, “I think quite simply he was the greatest entertainer that ever lived.”

Earlier Tuesday morning, family members and close friends of Jackson attended a private service at the Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills, a San Fernando Valley cemetery. That service began at about 8.30 am local time and lasted less than an hour, before the group, and the casket, made its way to downtown Los Angeles.

The memorial service featured performances by Stevie Wonder, Usher, Lionel Richie, Kobe Bryant, Jennifer Hudson, John Mayer and Martin Luther King III.