Pop superstar Michael Jackson was to be buried 10 weeks after his drug-induced death in a private ceremony for family and friends at a cemetery for the stars in suburban Los Angeles.

The intimate ceremony had been scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Thursday (0002 GMT Friday) in the mausoleum of the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, but the Jackson family only left their compound in a fleet of Rolls Royce limousines half an hour after the scheduled start.