Marvin Gaye, an American soul singer-songwriter, was shot to death by his father, Marvin Gay, Sr., after a domestic altercation in Los Angeles in 1984, at the age of 44.

Marvin Gaye was an American singer and composer who lived from April 2, 1939 until April 1, 1984. In the 1960s, he helped establish the sound of Motown, first as an in-house session musician and subsequently as a solo artist with a run of singles, earning him the nicknames "Prince of Motown" and "Prince of Soul." On the afternoon of April 1, 1984, Gaye intervened in a fight between his parents in the family house in Los Angeles' Hancock Park district, and he became involved in a physical altercation with his father, Marvin Gay Sr., who shot Gaye twice, once in the chest, piercing his heart, and then into Gaye's shoulder. The first shot was lethal.
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