Birthday burial for Michael Jackson, father says

19 Aug, 2009 03:07 AM12 mins to read

After weeks of hearsay, Michael Jackson will finally be laid to rest on his birthday, according to his father. Photo / AP

This is it: Over two months after his death,

Michael Jackson

will finally be laid to rest next week, on what would have been his 51st birthday, according to his father

Joe Jackson

The grisly patriarch says the King of Pop will be buried at Los Angeles' Forest Lawn Cemetery on August 29, according to the

New York Daily News

. Well, that's the plan anyway. The circus surrounding the late singer's final resting place has had more twists and kinks than a cheap garden hose, so maintain your cynicism until it actually happens.

According to the report, 80-year-old Joe, who had a much-publicised strained relationship with Jackson, said the burial will take place at 10am next Saturday - more than two months after he died on June 25 after suffering a cardiac arrest.

He indicated the plans for Jackson's burial were finalised over the last few days.

Burial row

The family has to date kept mum on what would become the singer's final resting place, amid reports of a bitter rift between Jackson's brother

Jermaine

and the rest of the clan over where to bury him.

Jermaine is said to have been pushing for interring the star at his former home, Neverland Ranch, and turning the venue into a permanent memorial similar to

Elvis Presley

's in Graceland.

But other members of the family are said to be totally against the idea and have put the mockers on it - given Jackson's reported distaste for Nerverland after the home was raided in 2003 following child molestation charges. Bad joo-joo.

Prior to papa Joe's burial 'announcement', a snitch speculated: "There is stalemate over where Jacko should be buried.

"Jermaine is determined it should be Neverland. Everyone else in the family finds the idea appalling.

"Until something gives, Michael will stay in the freezer at Forest Lawn.

"Katherine has been making regular visits there, where she stays for hours. It is a bizarre situation."

Chiller

Several news reports claimed over the weekend that Jackson's body is being kept in a freezer at Forest Lawn - for two reasons. One: because the family couldn't agree on a final resting place, and, two: Matriarch

Katherine

reportedly feared that grave robbers will try and steal her son's body.

The

New York Post

speculated that the singer's mother had his body moved from a crypt at Forest Lawn to another part of the grounds, where's it's being kept chilled in a secret freezer.

Katherine was said to be refusing to have her son buried because she was worried grave robbers would try to steal his body. So she arranged the switch and has been visiting the body two to three times a week as she struggles to come to terms with his death.

Unmarked grave

There's also been chatter that Jackson will be buried in an un-marked grave (citing security and the fear of grave-robbing as the main reason why). But papa Joe bellowing about the funeral date, time and location kinda blows that theory out of the water.

Jackson never did anything in moderation in life, and he sure as hell won't be reining in that trademark flamboyance in the afterlife. Our money's on a send off to end all showbiz send-offs, preceeded by a family-only service.

Fall guy

Joe Jackson is also reported to have said that he is supporting the LAPD's investigation into his son's death, and believes that

Dr Conrad Murray

would become "the fall guy for a whole lot of people."

He wouldn't say any more than that. But read between the lines and you can summise that there's more than one protagonist in what would prove to be Jackson's final act.

Murray, Jackson's personal doctor who was with him on the day he died, is currently under investigation by cops for allegedly administering the powerful anaesthetic Propofol to the singer hours before his death. Murray maintains he did nothing wrong and did not play a part in the singer's death.

Autopsy

The results of Jackson's autopsy are yet to see the light of day - they're being withheld by the Coroner's Office pending completion of the Los Angeles Police Department's manslaughter investigation into his death.

Kissing co-stars

It's the coy K.I.S.S.I.N.G game that's tantalising Twihards left, right and centre: Are

Robert Pattinson

and

Kristen Stewart

getting it on? Who knows. But they do say the camera never lies...have a butchers at

this snap

of the pair looking like they're going in for the kill at a Kings of Leon concert in Canada on Saturday night.

They so are.

I'm so crap!

Either someone's been pouring some truth serum down

Victoria Beckham

's gullet, or she's had an epiphany and come to her senses about her non-existent thespian tendencies.

The mother of all WAGS has come clean and confessed that she's no actress. "Every time anybody wants to flog anything, they attach my name to it... I can't act; you should see

Spice World

; I'm so crap!" she admits. Hallelujah, the penny's dropped.

As well as vetoing any more TV cameos, the trout pout says she's also ruling out a singing comeback.

"I'm not going to do any more music," she said. "The Spice Girls were so successful and it was great being in the band... We sold 50million albums. It was fantastic. It was an amazing roller coaster journey... I can't do that anymore."

Neither can we. Every time she parted her glossy lips and slaughtered sounds that dare not speak its name, we died a little inside.

Pack of shunt

For God's sake,

George Michael

, sort your baggage out.

The wayward singer was arrested on Friday on suspicion of driving under the influence of drink or drugs after smashing his silver Range Rover into a seven-ton truck in the wee hours of the morning.

Boyo was breathalysed at the side of the road and taken into police custody following a high-speed shunt between his Range Rover and a lorry on the A34 near Chieveley, England. He was later released without charge.

Despite the media brouhaha over the singer's latest indiscretion, Michael insists he was "stone cold sober" during the collision, and doesn't want his fans to fret over what he calls "just an insurance fight".

But the truck driver insists Michael was "driving like a madman" before rear-ending him with his Range Rover.

"He was all over the road - he was driving like crazy. He swerved past my artic so closely that he just missed me," said Sean Strong, 36.

"He was shouting and screaming at the passenger seat.

"I just knew the guy was not safe and that he was going to crash, which he did a mile or two later.

"I am surprised he walked away from it. He was going at some speed."

In a statement released after his arrest, Michael said, "Neither of us was charged because we were both stone cold sober.

"We both think the other is to blame so this is just an insurance fight."

'Course it is.

Meanwhile, have a butchers at Michael's

written-off motor here

Sue you

Hollywood totty

George Clooney

has declared war on a peeping paparazzo who reportedly scaled the wall of his Italian passion pad and shot topless pics of a 13-year-old girl changing in one of his guest rooms.

Justifiably crabby Clooney is said to be planning on taking the Italian lens lizard, and two magazines, to the cleaners by suing them for invasion of privacy.

According to celebrity gossip website TMZ.com, the relentless snapper scaled the walls of his Lake Como retreat in Italy and took snaps of a topless 13-year-old girl, as well as shots of Clooney and his 30-year-old Italian beauty

Elisabetta Canalis

enjoying 'private moments' in the yard of his estate.

The photos were then smeared all over two magazines, which bought and published the snaps, much to Clooney's chagrin.

In a statement to the press, Clooney rages: "We're suing two magazines AND a photographer. I don't know about the law in the United States but in Italy it's illegal for photographers to climb over my wall and to take long lens pictures of a 13-year-old girl in her bedroom. I draw the line of privacy at that."

We're with you on this one, George. Sue their a$. They totally crossed the line.

She's a man-eater

Mistress of spin

Lady GaGa

is a heartless minx who "eats up and spits out" men, according to her pal.

Record producer

Rob Fusari

has spilled to Britain's

Sun

tabloid and compares the

Poker Face

singer to the Tin Man in

The Wizard Of Oz

He said: "In terms of her break-up, that sort of stuff doesn't faze her.

"She's got a little bit of a Tin Man heart.

"I'm not trying to sound mean but she eats them up and spits them out.

"To her men are like candy - take the wrapper off, chew it up a few times."

He added: "Just the sort of girl you want to take home to mom!"

GaGa recently broke up from her entrepreneur boyfriend

Speedy

after a short whirlwind romance.

Fusari's comments aside, GaGa recently said she was devastated after breaking up with Speedy.

"Do you know the feeling of your heart being so terribly broken you can feel the blood dripping out?... when you have felt this, only then you know how I'm doing," she said.

"I'm homesick for New York. I can't tell you how much I miss that city. I love it all: the concrete, the bars, my family and friends."

Take the shame

Cheeky chappie and comedian

Russell Brand

was left red-faced on the set of new flick

Get Him To The Greek

in London last week - after a passer by pushed him into a fountain.

Filming on the edge of the famous fountain in Trafalgar Square grew to a halt after a mystery man grabbed him and sent him flying into the water.

A witness said: "It only took a nudge, but the bloke used a bit of force.

"Brand was completely underwater. I expect he will have some bruises." Bruised ego, more like.

Here's the build-up

Before the money shot

The prankster was later detained by security. Brand refused to press charges.

Blind bits

Naughty secrets, dirty little scandals...

"Which recently single celeb wasn't so faithful to her last boyfriend? She'd been sleeping with a big-name hip-hop artist for the last four months of her relationship."

NDN

"Which scorned reality star is in talks with a major R&B singer to have a faux relationship - just to improve her image?

NYDN

Which pop star turned down a pretty fan wanting lewd antics on a long-haul flight? The fella was ticked off by management for his previous transatlantic love-ins."

Mirror

"Which actor who has been known to say some questionable things about his wife publicly, even if it's well-meaning, blabbed to our source that he is secretly in love with his sister-in-law? Not Kevin Bacon."

Blind Gossip

"Which chart topper used to invite his straight male friends to try on his female housemate's dresses... then try to snog them?"

Mirror

Here we go again...

We've been here before.

Hugh Grant

, aka the boy who repeatedly cried "retirement", has yet again spoken about throwing in the towel and giving up acting.

Blaming stage fright as the latest catalyst, Grant tells Entertainment Weekly magazine, "I like everything about filming except the acting. I'm wonderful in rehearsals, but I've never been very good when they actually switch the cameras on.

"In recent years, I've had really bad attacks, where I totally freeze up. I thought, 'Well, if I'm going to get stage fright, then I'm packing it in.'"

TMI: Total Pratt

The Hills

star

Heidi Pratt

has had another serious case of verbal diarrhoea, constipation of the brain.

The reality star boasts about her hubby Spencer's sexual prowess and credits him with giving her up to 30 orgasms a day.

She tells

Playboy

mag: "You know, I was never very sexual before I met you, Spencer," she tells her husband, who was interviewing her for the magazine.

"I knew what sex was, but when I met you I entered into a whole new realm of understanding, from fantasy to love. Or to experience a day with 20 or 30 orgasms. Before you, sex was just something that happened. Now it's something I look forward to every minute of the day."

Seriously you two, get a room.

*Dude looks like a (little old) lady

*Pun intended.

Aerosmith frontman

Steven Tyler

makes his first public outing after his stage fall.

Close-up

here

. Sheesh, grandma!

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