Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
He Planned His Own Death - The Marvin Gaye story
Sun, 02 Feb 2025
World famous R&B singer Marvin Gaye is shot and killed by his own father.
Chapter 1: What led to Marvin Gaye's tragic end?
You know this famous singer Marvin Gaye? Well, one day Marvin gets into an argument with his dad and this argument gets heated, like really heated. And they're yelling at each other and they're screaming and then bam, it turns violent. And then suddenly his dad pulls out a pew-pew and he aims it and blam, he shoots Marvin in the chest, which is exactly what Marvin had planned. Let me explain.
Chapter 2: What was Marvin Gaye's childhood like?
Now, in order for this to all make sense, let's rewind back to when Marvin is eight years old. And now, he's just a kid here, but he actually has quite a terrible life. Now, his dad, who we'll just call dad, dad is a minister, and he drinks a lot, and he's also really violent and extremely strict.
Like, he'll often discipline little Marvin for things like wetting his bed, being a minute late home from school, or reciting Bible passages wrong. And when I say discipline, I mean... Yeah, dad's a real jerk. And little Marvin's not the only one dad is abusive to. He apparently gets violent with Marvin's mom too, who we'll just call mom.
And like dad will get physical with her and he also verbally abuses her and also sleeps around on her a lot. He sounds like a real winner. And throughout all this, apparently mom wants to leave him But unfortunately, she won't because she's religious and I guess divorces against their religion.
So anyway, mom and dad and Marvin and his siblings, they all just keep living in this extremely chaotic household. And to make it worse, little Marvin loves secular music, but dad discourages him from pursuing it, calling it the devil's music. But luckily, little Marvin just keeps on singing and playing as his mom is always there to encourage him. But then everything changes.
Chapter 3: How did Marvin Gaye rise to fame?
Time passes and little Marvin grows up and he actually becomes a professional singer-songwriter. And bro has a hell of a voice. And so he works hard and he tours and he writes a bunch of songs and soon enough his career blows up and everyone knows who he is. And he's out here selling albums and he's selling out tours and he's got songs on the radio. He actually has 41 songs make the top 40 charts.
41, including his most famous song, Let's Get It On, which is a song that I like to dedicate to your mother. My point is, despite being discouraged by his dad when he was young, Marvin ends up becoming the biggest soul singer in the world, and he ends up having an incredible career in music. Until... Fast forward a couple of decades to the early 80s, and Marvin is 44 years old now.
Chapter 4: What personal struggles did Marvin Gaye face in his later years?
In his career, it's still doing well, like he's still out there playing and making hits. In fact, he's just released one of his biggest songs ever, Sexual Healing, and it just hit number one. So all that's doing really well. But unfortunately, the poor guy still has a problem. He's super depressed, like clinically depressed.
And he's been battling this depression for years, and it just doesn't seem to get any better. Not only that, he's suffering from a drug habit. Mostly what I like to call Coca-Cola. And this habit only adds to his depression problem. Not to mention the drug habit is also making him really paranoid, like really paranoid. He always believes he's being pursued by people who want to unalive him.
In fact, his paranoia has gotten so bad that when he tours, he always wears a bulletproof vest right up until it's time to get on stage and then he takes it off and he performs. And if all that isn't bad enough, he's having money problems. And I know that sounds crazy because he's the biggest soul singer in the world, but he's actually like $9 million in debt.
And he owes the IRS $4.5 million in back taxes. And they've already come after him and seized a bunch of his assets. So things are not looking good for Marvin. And so yeah, understandably, he's bummed out and he's trying to pull his life back together and he ends up moving into the house that he bought his parents years before. They still live there.
Chapter 5: Why did Marvin Gaye move back with his parents?
So now at 44 years old, he's living with his parents again. And unfortunately, in this household, things aren't going well. Tensions are really high. Like Marvin's dad, he's still a heavy drinker and he's still allegedly mistreating Marvin's mom. And as much as Marvin has tried to get clean, he's still using that Coca-Cola he likes so much.
And he's still resentful towards his dad for the way he treated him and his mom during his childhood. And to make it even worse, there are firearms all over the house. Remember, Marvin's a paranoid guy, so he buys a lot of pew-pews for protection. He even buys one for his dad for protection. Dun, dun, dun. Regardless, at some point while living there, life starts getting to be too much for him.
The addiction, the depression, the paranoia, the money problems. He's kind of losing his mind and he seems to be self-aware of it. And despite being an incredibly successful and talented superstar, he just doesn't want to exist anymore. And this is where he allegedly comes up with a plan. A plan to get rid of his dad while saving his mom.
And according to testimony from his siblings, Marvin's plan was this. First, he'll get his own dad to unalive him. Then police will come and his dad will get thrown in prison, which will then finally save his mom by getting his father out of her life. And I know that sounds wild, but that is what his siblings believe his plan was.
And so finally the right day comes and it's otherwise a pretty normal day and they're all at home and dad is looking for some insurance document and he can't find it and he insists it's all his wife's fault and he's screaming at her like this is all your fault. But mom is upstairs and dad is yelling up at her from downstairs.
And so Marvin hears all this and he gets mad and he starts screaming back, defending his mom like, shut the hell up, old man, or whatever. And this pisses dad off and he is not going to let this slide. And he just sucks.
naps and he runs upstairs and then boom he busts into the bedroom and he screams at Marvin's mom and Marvin's like oh hell no and he steps up and he pushes dad out of the room and suddenly this turns into an all-out fist fight and then pow Marvin punches his dad and bam he kicks him and then dad falls to the floor and mom is screaming at them to stop and so Marvin does but then dad gets up and he walks over to his bedroom and he grabs his pew pew
The same one that Marvin had bought him for protection. And he walks over to Marvin, and he points it at his chest, and blam! He fires. And Marvin falls to the floor. And as he's lying on the ground, blam! Dad shoots him again.
Meanwhile, Marvin's brother, who lives out back in the guest house, he hears the gunshots and he comes running and he comes inside the home and he sees his brother there on the floor dying and he's like, oh, and he runs over to him and he holds him. And according to him, Marvin's last words are, I got what I wanted. I couldn't do it myself. So I had him do it.
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