Muhammad Ali’s funeral will be held Friday in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, and will be preceded by a public procession.
Bob Gunnell, a spokesman for Ali’s family, announced the funeral arrangements Saturday afternoon, less than 24 hours after the three-time heavyweight boxing champion and sports icon died at the age of 74.
Gunnell said Ali died at 9:10 p.m. MST from septic shock due to unspecified natural causes. Ali spent the last hour of his life surrounded by his family after initially being hospitalized in the Phoenix area on Monday.
The funeral, scheduled for 2 p.m. ET at the KFC Yum! Center, also will be open to the public. Eulogies will be given by former President Bill Clinton, Billy Crystal and Bryant Gumbel.
The procession will begin at 9 a.m. and will travel along a route that “includes locations that were historically important to Muhammad,” according to a statement.
Gunnell said that Ali “did not suffer” in the hours prior to his death and described Ali’s final moments with his family as “solemn” but “beautiful.”
“The champ would have been proud of his family,” Gunnell said.
Hana Ali, one of Ali’s daughters, also described her father’s last moments in a social media post earlier Saturday, saying his heart continued to beat for about 30 minutes after all of his other organs failed. She wrote on her Instagram and Twitter accounts that “no one had even seen anything like it.”
Retired from boxing since 1981, Ali had battled Parkinson’s disease for decades. He had been hospitalized a few other times in recent years, including in early 2015 because of a severe urinary tract infection initially diagnosed as pneumonia.
