Though Marvin Gay Sr. admitted to shooting his famous son Marvin Gaye on April 1, 1984, he received only a six-year suspended sentence and five years of probation for the crime.
Lennox McLendon/Associated PressMarvin Gay Sr., the father of Marvin Gaye, under arrest for the death of his son.
Marvin Gay Sr.’s life was defined by deep personal struggles and abusive relationships, culminating in the tragic and violent death of his son, the legendary Motown singer Marvin Gaye.
Gay’s relationships with his family were marked by his cruel behavior, often linked with his strict religious beliefs and his own childhood trauma.
As Marvin Gaye grew older, his turbulent relationship with his father only worsened. When he succeeded in the music industry, Gaye attempted to reconcile with his father by showering him with gifts, but Gay’s personal struggles — including alcoholism, chronic pain, and extreme piety — caused him to resent his son’s success, further straining their relationship.
The tension boiled over on April 1, 1984, when an argument between father and son escalated at the family’s Los Angeles home. It ended with Marvin Gay Sr. shooting Marvin Gaye twice with a .38-caliber revolver, killing him.
Though Gay was originally charged with first-degree murder, he was allowed to enter a no-contest plea to voluntary manslaughter, and he ultimately received a six-year suspended sentence and five years of probation.
This is the tumultuous story of Marvin Gay Sr.
The Early Life Of Marvin Gay Sr.
Find A GraveMarvin Gay Sr.’s registration card from when he lived in Washington, D.C.
Marvin Gay Sr. was born on October 1, 1914 in Kentucky. The eldest of 13 children, Gay spent much of his childhood near and in Lexington, Kentucky under the forceful hand of his own abusive father.
His father regularly mistreated him, his siblings, and his mother. However, the family found solace in religion, choosing to join a Pentecostal Church known as the “House of God” when Gay was a young boy.
Gay’s relationship with religion inspired him to pursue ministry as he grew older. When he was in his late teens, Gay moved to Washington, D.C. to serve as a preacher for the House of God, which was known for its strict rules.
While living in Washington, D.C., Gay met and married Alberta Cooper. The two tied the knot in July 1935. The couple would go on to have four children together, including the future hit singer Marvin Gaye.
Find A GraveFrom left to right: Marvin Gaye, his wife Janis, his son Marvin III, and his parents Alberta and Marvin Gay Sr. 1974.
However, Gay’s relationship with his family was just as turbulent as the one he experienced in his childhood. Gay often had extramarital affairs (one of which resulted in the birth of a love child) and abused his family.
This abuse often went hand in hand with Gay’s strict religious beliefs. He would frequently beat his children if they could not recite Bible verses properly. Sometimes, he even withheld food from the children, claiming that it would bring them “closer to God.” Though all the children suffered, Marvin Gaye purportedly received the worst of the abuse.
“By the time I was twelve, there wasn’t an inch on my body that hadn’t been bruised and beaten by him,” Marvin Gaye would later say.
Unfortunately, things didn’t get better as time went on. In fact, it’s believed that Marvin Gaye changed his surname, adding the “e” to the end, to distance himself as much as possible from his father.
A Troubled Relationship Between Father And Son
Wikimedia Commons Though Marvin Gaye became wildly successful, he was never able to please his father.
When Marvin Gaye grew older, his relationship with his father continued to worsen. Meanwhile, he also discovered that Gay sometimes cross-dressed.
Gaye was already dealing with bullies at school who teased him about his father’s strict rules, and when his classmates found out about his father’s cross-dressing, the bullying only increased. And at home, Gaye continued to endure the rampant physical and emotional abuse inflicted by his father.
“If it wasn’t for Mother, who was always there to console me and praise me for my singing, I think I would have been one of those child suicides you read about in the papers,” Marvin Gaye later stated.
For much of his life, Marvin Gaye’s biggest comfort was music. From a young age, Gaye demonstrated a talent for playing piano and possessed a beautiful singing voice. His talents eventually led him to Motown Records.
After gaining popularity in the music world in the 1960s, Marvin Gaye tried to win his father over by showering him with gifts. He purchased his parents a nicer home in Washington, D.C. and even gifted his father a Cadillac. Eventually, he also bought his parents another house in Los Angeles.
However, the gestures did little to put Gaye into his father’s good graces.
Despite his son’s success, Marvin Gay Sr. found himself unable to be happy for him. Gay’s relationship with his wife had become so strained that they no longer slept in the same room. Worse, he had developed severe alcoholism after injuring his back. Both the injuries and the excessive drinking prevented him from working as a minister. In fact, his poor physical and mental health meant that job opportunities in general were limited.
For him, life was only getting worse while his son continued to thrive.
“He fancied himself as a prophet and message-giver, and then Marvin became hailed as a voice of his generation, and yet Marvin wasn’t living a godly life. That seemed so unfair to Reverend Gay,” Steve Turner, the author of Trouble Man, a biography about Marvin Gaye, told A&E.
Gay’s personal issues, combined with unresolved feelings between him and his son, led to a tragic turn of events on April 1, 1984.
The Sudden Death Of Marvin Gaye — And The Arrest Of His Father
Wikimedia CommonsMarvin Gay Sr. in court while on trial for the murder of his son.
For Christmas 1983, Marvin Gaye gifted his father an unregistered .38-caliber Smith & Wesson to protect the family. Gaye, grappling with a severe cocaine addiction, had grown paranoid that someone was trying to kill him.
Then, on March 31, 1984, things became especially tense between Marvin Gaye and his father after Marvin Gay Sr. yelled at Alberta about some misplaced documents in the family’s Los Angeles home.
The next day, April 1, 1984, the tension between Gaye and his father escalated. Their neighbors initially claimed they were fighting about Gaye’s birthday plans (he would’ve turned 45 the next day), but later reports said the argument was about the misplaced documents that Gay was trying to find earlier. The documents purportedly had to do with an insurance policy.
According to Alberta Gay, Marvin Gaye struck his father after he ignored Gaye’s warnings to leave his mother alone, or at least speak to her respectfully. Moments later, Marvin Gay Sr. appeared with his gifted .38-caliber revolver and shot his son twice, in the chest and in the shoulder.
The police arrived at the home shortly afterward and transported Marvin Gaye to the California Hospital Medical Center, where he was declared dead. The first bullet had irreparably damaged multiple vital organs.
Barry King/Alamy Stock PhotoMarvin Gaye’s former home in Los Angeles, where he was killed by his father.
While under arrest, Marvin Gay Sr. told police that he only shot his son in self-defense after Marvin Gaye attacked him first.
“I pulled the trigger,” Gay said during a jail cell interview, according to the Washington Post. “The first one didn’t seem to bother him. He put his hand up to his face like he’d been hit with a BB. And then I fired again. I was backing up toward my room. I was going to go in there and lock the door.”
But Gay’s account of Marvin Gaye’s death was suspicious, especially since evidence later showed that Gaye had been seated at the time of the fatal shooting. And chillingly, Gaye’s second gunshot wound had been caused by a bullet that was fired at a closer range than the first.
Even worse, when Gay was asked if he loved his son, he replied, “Let’s say that I didn’t dislike him,” according to the Washington Post.
On September 20, 1984, Gay pleaded no contest to a charge of voluntary manslaughter (he had originally been charged with first-degree murder, but this was eventually downgraded). For the killing of his son, Gay received a six-year suspended sentence and five years of probation. His wife also filed for divorce, initiating the end of their nearly five-decade-long marriage.
Gay’s light sentence was partly due to his declining health, which only worsened after he was released. He eventually required long-term care, and he would later die of pneumonia in a nursing home in Culver City, California on October 10, 1998. He was 84 years old at the time of his death.
After reading about Marvin Gay Sr. and the disturbing story of Marvin Gaye’s death, dive into the stories of nine notorious stage parents. Then, read about the bizarre story behind R&B legend Sam Cooke’s death.
