A memorial service for Michael Jackson will be held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles next Tuesday at 10am.

The venue and date for the service was confirmed today after several memorial ideas, including a public viewing of the superstar’s body at Neverland, were weighed by the Jackson family.

The magnitude of the event, the potential turnout and the involvement of local government were considerable factors in deciding where to stage it.

AEG Live chief executive Randy Phillips has organised a news conference for Friday at 10am to discuss details for the event, including a registration system for tickets.

He said today that after giving it some thought the family had agreed to the venue, which was the site of Jackson’s last rehearsal. He said Jackson’s mother had the final say. “It’s all up to Katherine,” Phillips said.

A spokesman for the Jacksons, Ken Sunshine, in a statement said 11,000 tickets for the memorial service in the heart of LA would be given away free.

Los Angeles City councilman Dennis Zine said the Jackson family should consider delaying the public memorial to allow more time to plan. He also said the cash-strapped city could not afford to pay police overtime.

“If you can imagine 100,000 people showing up and you have 20,000 capacity (at the Staples Center), there is not sufficient room,” Zine said. “Now you have a crowd-control problem.” With the July 4 holiday weekend “It’s the worst time … to work something out.”

Source: Splash News

Supporters of Brad Pitt entering politics have added a T-shirt shop in New Orleans to their ranks. The owner of Storyville, Josh Harvey, says the first “Brad Pitt for Mayor” T-shirt has been designed and is on sale at his store.

Harvey said a local movement to put Pitt into the mayor’s job, one that was made highly controversial in the wake of the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster, is sounding “less and less crazy”.

Pitt took a personal interest in flood victims and the Big Easy, making The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in the city. The T-shirt featuring him was designed by a Tulane University professor who invited the store to use the motif.

“Brad Pitt is someone who’s really done a lot for the City of New Orleans and the more people are talking about it, it sounds less and less crazy, especially with Governor [Arnold] Schwarzenegger and Al Franken about to be sworn in as the US senator from Minnesota,” Harvey said.

The store owner said a portion of the proceeds from the Pitt sales goes toward the actor’s Make It Right Foundation, which sells its own line of T-shirts, baseball caps and other items to fund new homes.

Public Enemies star Johnny Depp has revealed he used his own family as inspiration for his new film.

Depp, 46, plays the role of gangster John Dillinger in the film and said his own grandfather and stepfather were often on the wrong side of the law.

He said: “It has to do with my family and my upbringing. My grandfather, who I was close to as a kid, had run moonshine into dry countries and my stepfather had also been a bit of a rogue.

“He’d done burglaries and robberies and had spent some time in Statesville Prison in Illinois, where we actually ended up shooting some of the film.”

Depp also revealed he found a mugshot of his stepfather, Robert Palmer, who passed away in 2000, while going through records at the prison.

Source: Splash News

De Matteo is sure to bring some mob flavour to the Desperate Housewives set that has lately come to resemble a crime drama.

The blonde beauty, an Emmy award winning actress who is to play the matriarch of a newly arrived Italian family, will be a regular on the hit show.

Insiders say de Matteo will bring some needed edge in the wake of Nicolette Sheridan’s character’s departure last season.

The Italian housewife is to have a yet to be cast landscape designer husband and a wound-up son.

Sienna Miller bears no grudge against Cate Blanchett over her forfeiting of the Maid Marian role in the upcoming film Robin Hood.

“Cate’s 10 years older than me, which is more suitable for the script,” the actress has told a movie magazine.

“The script kept changing and evolving to the point where I was no longer appropriate for it.”

Miller was to have played the merry maid opposite Russell Crowe as Robin. The Ridley Scott-directed film has been shooting most recently on the Welsh coast.

“If they’d recast with Keira Knightley I’d have been heartbroken,” Miller said, “but they’ve gone for something different - and better in my opinion … If I had the choice between Cate Blanchett and me I’d go for Cate Blanchett.”

She also pointed out that other actors were swapped as the film developed. “There were several people supposed to be doing the film who no longer are but because it’s me it becomes this enormous drama - I think it’s a Sienna thing! …. There’s just a vendetta against … I don’t know.”

Michael Jackson reportedly forgot to eat as he struggled to rehearse for his London shows, it has been claimed.

The King of Pop died on June 25 after reportedly suffering a heart attack, and before his death, he was preparing to perform 50 shows at London’s O2 Arena.

His tour promoter Randy Phillips said the star often forgot to eat, and he and choreographer Kenny Ortega cut the star’s food up so he could eat it quickly.

He said: “He’d forget to eat as he was so focused, and Kenny and I used to cut up his food and feed him.”

Despite living on a low-calorie diet, Randy said: “Frail, he certainly wasn’t. He was always very thin but not to the point where he couldn’t perform.

“He really kicked into high gear and was totally engaged in the last two weeks. Before that, he was nervous and not really coming to rehearsals. But that was how he wanted to do things.

“It was like when you revise the day before an exam - that was the way he operated. Michael did not have a gruelling schedule - he had Michael’s schedule. He was so talented he didn’t need to rehearse much.”
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Transformers director Michael Bay has said actress Megan Fox says some “very ridiculous things”.

The 23-year-old actress, who starred in the Transformers films, is known for her no-holds-barred interviews and her outlandish comments. She recently said that Bay concentrates more on special effects than acting.

Bay said: “Well, that’s Megan Fox for you. She says some very ridiculous things because she’s 23 years old and she still has a lot of growing to do.”

He added: “You roll your eyes when you see statements like that and thing: ‘OK Megan, you can do whatever you want. I got it.’”

Talking about the comment she made, he said: “I 100 percent disagree with her. Nick Cage wasn’t a big actor when I cast him, nor was Ben Affleck before I put him in Armageddon.

“Shia LaBeouf wasn’t a big movie star before he did Transformers – and then he exploded. Not to mention Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, from Bad Boys.”

He added: “Nobody in the world knew about Megan Fox until I found her and put her in Transformers. I like to think that I’ve had some luck in building actors’ careers with my films.”

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Michael Jackson’s doctor admits there was an astonishing 30 minute delay for ambulance crews to arrive - saying he did not know the address to call them to.

Dr Conrad Murray desperately performed CPR on Jackson without calling 911.

By the time he raised the alarm, getting a security guard to make the emergency call, it was “about 25 to 30 minutes” before help arrived, his lawyer admits.

Now Dr Murray - who was living with Jackson - has told police the long delay was because he did not know Jackson’s address to be able to make the call himself.

The cardiologist’s attorney Ed Chernoff said: “In the Jackson house, in Michael Jackson’s room, there is no phone, no land line, and so there’s no way to call 911 and have an automated system to determine where the call is coming from.

“Dr Murray had his cell phone but he did not know the address of Michael Jackson’s house.

“He knew how to get there, he knew what road it was on, but he did not know the precise address so he couldn’t use cell phone.

“He called security from his cellphone while administering CPR and there was no answer.

“He continued to administer CPR, trying to revive Michael Jackson, and at some point he had to run downstairs and yell for help, finally locating the chef who got security up to the room and then the 911 call was made.”

The attorney insisted: “Throughout the whole of that 25 or 30 minutes before emergency personnel arrived, Dr Murray was performing CPR and trying to revive Mr Jackson.”

George Clooney has been forced to deny reports he had died.

The Ocean’s Thirteen hunk, 48, became the latest star to fall victim to Internet pranksters who rushed online to spread rumours of his death.

Clooney’s publicist Stan Rosenfield told celebrity website TMZ.com that he was “bombarded” with calls from media outlets after claims of his passing began to surface.

He told the site that “some of Clooney’s friends… were genuinely shaken by [the] reports.”

A surge of fake deaths have emerged in the last week, following the genuine deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson.

Jeff Goldblum was a victim of tricksters after an online stunt insisted he had fallen to his death while filming in New Zealand.

Britney Spears’ representatives also had to confirm the singer was alive after a hacker broke into her Twitter account and sent a message to her two million followers claiming she had died. It was also wrongly rumoured that Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder had passed away.

Source: Splash News

A comic book series looking at the lives of powerful women is to feature talk-show queen and media mogul Oprah Winfrey.

The TV star will appear in Bluewater Productions’ collection, Female Force.

Previous women whose stories have been told include Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama.

An issue devoted to Diana, Princess of Wales will come out in July and one on Condoleezza Rice will be published in August. The Oprah issue is published in September. One on Caroline Kennedy is out now, and a further issue will be dedicated to veteran television reporter and personality, Barbara Walters.

Oprah rose from a childhood of poverty and abuse to become a millionaire at the age of 32.

She lives on a 42-acre estate in Montecito, California, and reportedly owns nine other homes.

Bluewater Productions publisher Darren G. Davis said: “She turned her wounds into wisdom and survived an abusive family to become one of the most powerful and influential people in the world.”

David and Victoria Beckham flew into Essex unannounced to surprise Becks’s mother on her 60th birthday, it was reported.

The couple, who live in Los Angeles, brought their three sons to a dinner at a restaurant near Chelmsford where Becks’s mother Sandra was celebrating.

The family sidled their way in through the kitchen. “They crept in through the back so they could surprise the birthday girl. There were gasps of delight when they walked in with a lots of hugs and kisses,” a source said.

David, Victoria, Brooklyn, 10, Romeo, 6 and Cruz, 4, sat down to a £20-a-head meal at the Blue Bridge in Writtle on Friday night. David delivered an after-dinner speech. “It was just like any other family birthday party. Their children were running around with all the other kids,” the source said.

The following day, Beckham drove Brooklyn to a flower shop, where the boy bought a yellow bouquet for his granny.

On Saturday night, the pair enjoyed dinner with Victoria’s side of the family. Victoria appeared chic in a black evening dress with black pumps, while David wore a slim-line dinner suit and stunning black tie.

They reportedly went on to a sophisticated bash at The Ivy afterward with Posh’s parents and her sister Louise and her boyfriend.

Posh and Becks are reportedly planning to fly to the Seychelles to celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary on July 4 and to have booked an entire resort for the event.

Frank DiLeo said he was forced to break the news of the death to the star’s three children.

And he revealed he had to tell Katherine Jackson that she had lost her son.

He said the kids knew just by looking at his reaction what had happened.

He said: “They said ‘Say it’s not true’.

“I said ‘I’m sorry’.

“We all cried and they came over and we hugged and they all hugged each other.

“It is just a very sad time.”

DiLeo said he also told Katherine Jackson of her son’s death.

He told US television: “She was emotional, [she] grabbed me and squeezed me.

“We just cried together.”

DiLeo said he was able to view Jackson’s dead body in the hospital and said he kissed Jackson and told him that he loved him.

US President Barack Obama has penned a letter of sympathy to the family of Michael Jackson, one of his top aides has said.

White House adviser David Axelrod said Obama expressed his condolences to the Jacksons following the singer’s death in Los Angeles on Thursday.

Appearing on television show Meet the Press, Axelrod said Obama believes Jackson was “an important and magnificent performer” who made an undeniable impact on music and entertainment.

Asked why Obama had yet to speak publicly about Jackson’s sudden death last week at age 50, Axelrod said: “The president has written the family and has shared his feelings with the family.”

“He felt that was the appropriate way to go.” Aides say there are no plans to release the note to the public.

My Sister’s Keeper star Cameron Diaz has said she is “very excited” to be working with Tom Cruise again.

Cameron, 36, will be teaming up with Tom, 46, for the film Wichita, about an undercover agent who meets a woman who hasn’t had much luck with romance, which is scheduled for a 2010 release.

Talking about the film, she said: “Well, if I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t be doing it.”

She added: “I’m very, very excited about doing it. It’s an action film, so I’m really excited to work with him.”

Cameron was recently honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and she said it was “great” to see Tom and wife Katie Holmes there to cheer her on. She said: “I was really happy to see them.”

She added: “They were wonderful. It was fantastic.

“It was so lovely of them to come out and show support. My whole family was there and my friends were there.

“And I consider them that as well. So it was really wonderful to have them here.”

Source: Splash News

The mother of Michael Jackson’s two children is reportedly poised to take full control of them in the wake of the superstar’s death.

Debbie Rowe was understood to have given up her parental rights to Paris and Michael Joseph Jr. after a custody battle in 2005, saying the music legend was a great father.

But it’s now emerged that a technicality during the court proceedings meant that she never officially handed over those rights.

It comes despite widespread speculation that Jackson’s mother Katherine would take custody of the pair.

According to TMZ.com, retired Judge Stephen Lachs, who presided over the hearing, had initially ruled that Rowe’s rights were terminated.

However, he later reversed this decision because the American nurse had not undergone a parental fitness investigation.

Lance Spiegel, the lawyer who represented Jackson, told the website that legally, the Department of Children and Family Services must conduct such an inquiry before a person can have their parental rights terminated.

It means that under California law, Rowe is now presumed to be the person who will get custody of Michael Jnr, 12 and Paris, 11.

The only way she can be denied custody is if a court determines that this would be “detrimental to the children”.

It’s reported that Rowe intends to apply for custody, although she is likely to have a fight on her hands.

If a bid is successful, she is expected to receive hefty child support payments from the tragic musician’s estate.

Jackson, who died aged 50 on Thursday, also has a third child, Prince “Blanket” Michael II, who was born via a surrogate mother.

Director Steven Spielberg has paid tribute to King of Pop Michael Jackson.

He told Entertainment Weekly: “Just as there will never be another Fred Astaire or Chuck Berry or Elvis Presley, there will never be anyone comparable to Michael Jackson.

“His talent, his wonderment and his mystery make him a legend.”

Source: Splash News

The sought-after contents of Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch pulled from a planned $4m auction could now go under the hammer in the wake of his sudden death.

Jackson had arranged for many of his famous stage costumes, paintings, sculptures, awards, arcade games and jewellery to be sold off in April this year. But despite his financial woes, the superstar changed his mind at the last minute and organisers were forced to return the property, which is now in storage.

Following the 50-year-old superstar’s death from a suspected heart attack, the one-off extravaganza could now go ahead.

Darren Julien, president and CEO of Julien’s Auctions, had held a series of exhibitions ahead of the planned sale and was sorely disappointed when Jackson pulled the plug.

He told Radaronline.com: “We returned everything to Michael immediately after the exhibit in April. It is still in storage. Under the right circumstances, I would agree to undertake the auction again.”

Source: Splash News

O’Neal, 24, who is serving a prison sentence at Pitchess Detention Centre, where he is also being treated for drug addiction, was not at his actress mother’s bedside during her last hours. A source reportedly said he was "devastated" by her death from cancer.

Entertainment website RadarOnline said Los Angeles Superior Court commissioner Jane Godfrey had signed a removal order permitting O’Neal to attend the funeral, where he will be allowed to wear a suit instead of his prison uniform.

The date of the funeral has not been determined. Fawcett was reportedly a devout Catholic so would most likely be buried rather than cremated.

Fawcett died overnight with Redmond’s father, Ryan O’Neal, at her side.

The prisoner’s attorney, William Flattery, said his client was doing well in his rehabilitation program. O’Neal was imprisoned on a parole violation for a drug-related charge.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) is actually taking the Oscars back to their historic roots in doing so. Sid Ganis, AMPAS president, said: "After more than six decades the Academy is returning to some of its earlier roots when a wider field competed for the top award of the year… The final outcome will be the same – one Best Picture winner – but the race to the finish line will feature 10, not just five movies, from 2009."

In 1944, there were 10 films in the running for the centerpiece award – and the Best Picture went to … Casablanca.

Ganis continued: "Having 10 Best Picture nominees is going to allow Academy voters to recognise and include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories but have been squeezed out of the race for the top prize."

He added: "The field is vast – there were around 300 eligible movies this year and last and 10 nominees out of 300 is still spectacular. It’ll be less cloistered and more open with possibilities."

The announcement got a warm reception in Hollywood. LA Times critic Tom O’Neil, wrote:

"They’ve got to do something to make the show more sexy and hip and expanding the Best Picture race is a brilliant solution."

Susan, 48, came second in the British version of the show but shot to fame around the world after her first audition.

A new series of America’s Got Talent has recently started, and Piers said he believes the show will have more viewers than ever before.

He said: "I mean, look, the British show got record ratings up 50% because of the Susan Boyle phenomenon. And I have got no doubt that we are going to see significant increases in the ratings of America’s Got Talent this summer.

"I think this season we’re back where we should be as the number one summer show, and we’ve got this incredible oxygen of the Susan Boyle phenomenon and all the interest around Britain’s Got Talent."

Piers admitted he believes people will enter the show to try and "beat" Susan Boyle’s success.

He said: "I think Americans are very competitive particularly when it comes to the Brits and I think that America’s going to want to tune in to see how America responds to the challenge, you know? Have you got anyone who can beat our Susan?"

Source: Splash News