Jeanne Gaye, Marvin’s older sister, spoke to biographer David Ritz about the childhood she and her siblings had lived through. It was Jeanne who told Ritz that the beatings had begun around age seven. It was Jeanne who recounted their father’s warning that if Marvin ever struck him, he would kill him.
When Gay Sr. died of pneumonia on October 10, 1998, at age 84—in a nursing home in Culver City, California, to which he had been relocated from the Inglewood nursing home he first moved to around 1986—his family observed the death quietly. There was no public statement from the Gaye estate.
He had outlived his famous son by fourteen years.
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PART EIGHTEEN: THE CHILDREN OF MARVIN GAYE
Marvin Gaye left behind three children, each of whom navigated the complicated legacy of his name and his music in their own way.
Marvin Gaye III, born November 17, 1965, to Denise Gordy and adopted by Marvin and Anna Gordy Gaye during their marriage, became a co-executor of his father’s estate. In 2013, he and his siblings brought one of the most significant copyright cases in recent music history, suing the producers and performers behind “Blurred Lines”—Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams—over similarities they alleged between that song and “Got to Give It Up.” The jury found in the Gaye estate’s favor in March 2015.
Nona Aisha Gaye, born September 4, 1974, in Los Angeles—the daughter of Marvin Gaye and Janis Hunter—became a musician and actress. She appeared in Ali (2001) and in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions (both 2003). She released her own solo music, working within the R&B and soul tradition her father had helped define.