A schoolboy from Swansea who reached the final of Britain’s Got Talent will perform with Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, and Lionel Richie at today’s memorial service for Michael Jackson.

Shaheen Jafargholi, 12, was picked after singing Who’s Lovin’ You? on the ITV talent show. He has sung in the Jackson stage musical Thriller Live!

The televised extravaganza at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles will also feature Usher, Smokey Robinson and Jennifer Hudson, the Oscar-winning actress and singer.

Brooke Shields, Jackson’s former girlfriend, the Rev Al Sharpton, the civil rights activist and Kobe Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers basketball star, will also take part.

However, Elizabeth Taylor said that she would not attend the memorial because “I cannot be part of the public whoopla”. She said on Twitter: “I just don’t believe that Michael would want me to share my grief with millions of others. How I feel is between us. Not a public event.”

Debbie Rowe, the mother of Jackson’s two eldest children, also said that she would not attend so as not to become a “distraction”.

Fans who won the online lottery for 8,750 pairs of tickets to the memorial service celebrated as they picked up their gold wristbands yesterday at the Dodger’s Stadium in Los Angeles.

“I can’t believe, out of 1.6 million people, I am one of them,” said Orlando McNary, a mechanic from Los Angeles. “I was a fan of Michael Jackson but my daughter is a bigger fan. Her birthday is at the end of the month, so I’m going to take her.”

Despite security precautions, some tickets for the memorial appeared on eBay, fetching bids as high as $3,000 (£1,800). The site removed the listings.

Michelle Johnson and her mother, Paulett McCowan, flew in from Houston, Texas, to pick up tickets given to them by a stranger. A pastor from Houston offered them the tickets he had won in the lottery after watching a local news report about them planning to make the trip to Los Angeles.

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