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We’re talking about Marvin Gaye’s death here. Marvin Gaye built his name as a performer and composer on the Motown record label. When he was growing up in Washington, D.C., he was reared by his mother, Alberta Gay, and his minister father, Marvin Gay, Sr. Marvin discovered his musical talent and love through his participation in his father’s church choir.
Marvin added an “E” to his surname to distinguish himself from his father, with whom he had a strained relationship, after being taunted about it when he first began his musical career. Marvin soon climbed to prominence in the music industry, penning multiple top-charting songs. Marvin’s career had an impact on the aesthetic and reputation of Motown Records.
On April 1, 1984, inside their Los Angeles home, Marvin was cruelly slain by his father. On the day of the murder, Marvin and Marvin Sr. were arguing about a misplaced insurance policy document. At this moment, the animosity between Marvin and his father was still strong, and Marvin’s sister had left the house primarily to avoid the dispute.
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Marvin’s relatives revealed that in the months leading up to his death, he attempted to jump out of a moving car and suffered from melancholy and suicidal thoughts. After becoming increasingly apprehensive following an alleged assassination attempt, Marvin gave his father a pistol for Christmas in 1983 in order to defend himself from potential robbers and murderers.
Marvin had no idea that the rifle he bought to defend his family would wind up being his own murder weapon. Marvin kicked his father, according to his mother, who was a witness after an hour-long fight over the missing document grew physical. Marvin Sr. then shot the man in the chest with the handgun his son had handed him.
The bullet injured his left kidney, liver, stomach, right lung, heart, and diaphragm. Marvin, Sr. took a step closer and fired a second shot after the first proved fatal. As commotion broke out in the residence, family members screamed in panic. Gaye died in the hospital the day before his 45th birthday.
Marvin Gaye, Sr., pled no guilty to voluntary manslaughter and received a six-year suspended sentence with five years of probation. He claimed that he killed his son in self-defense, that he had no idea if the rifle was loaded, and that he “didn’t mean to do it.”
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Marvin Gaye had developed a cocaine addiction by the time he finished his final tour in 1983, in order to deal with the stresses of the road and his failing marriage to Anna as a result of his adultery, which led to a lengthy legal struggle.
He began to engage his father in a pattern of domestic violence. The past disagreements between the two remained unresolved decades later. Marvin Gaye’s mother, Alberta Gay, later stated, “My husband never wanted Marvin, and he never loved him.”
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He once stated that he did not believe the boy was his son. That was silly, I told him. He knew Marvin was his. For some reason, he didn’t love Marvin, and to make matters worse, he didn’t want me to love Marvin either. Even as an adult, Gaye struggled with his sentiments regarding his father’s cross-dressing and claimed homosexuality.
Gaye compared living in his father’s house to “living with a king, a very weird, changing, unpleasant, and all-powerful king.” That king, Marvin Gay Sr., was born in Jessamine County, Kentucky, in 1914, to an abusive father. Gay was a pastor in a fundamentalist Pentecostal sect who physically chastised his children, with Marvin supposedly receiving the worst of it. Marvin Gaye’s I Heard It Through The Grapevine, 1980.
Gaye was viciously abused by his father almost every day while growing up at home. Gaye’s sister Jeanne later said that his childhood included “a series of brutal whippings.” “There wasn’t an inch on my body that hadn’t been harmed and beaten by him by the time I was twelve,” Gaye subsequently said.
Gaye’s mistreatment, for whatever cause, did not prevent him from developing a wonderful musical talent. When he was four years old, he began performing music at his father’s church, and by the time he was a teenager, he had mastered the drums and the piano. He developed a deep love for R&B and doo-wop.
Gaye reportedly changed his name to “Gaye” to refute claims that he and his father were both homosexuals as he began to establish himself professionally and distance himself from his father’s toxic connection. Gaye eventually moved to Detroit with a musical associate and was successful in obtaining a performance for Berry Gordy, the head of Motown Records and the city’s biggest figure in the music industry.
The label quickly signed him, and he married Anna, Gordy’s older sister, soon after. Despite the fact that Gaye rose to prominence as Motown’s Prince and enjoyed enormous success for the next 15 years, his relationship with his father never entirely recovered.
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