With his physical and mental health rapidly deteriorating in his final months and his star seeming to have crested — tickets for his final tour declined as it went on, according to Ebony — Marvin Gaye became increasingly despondent and self-destructive. He seemingly became transfixed with a gun he kept in his room until his mother, justifiably worried about his safety and state of mind, convinced him to get rid of it. And four days before his death, he made a more obvious attempt to take his own life. "Marvin tried to kill himself by throwing himself out of a car going 60 miles an hour," his older sister Jeanne Gay told Ebony. "He was only bruised, but there was no doubt he wanted to die."

Many who knew Gaye well suspected he provoked his final confrontation with his father intentionally, with a full understanding of how his violence-prone father would react. "In the past Father had made it very clear that if Marvin were to strike him, he'd murder him. Father said so publicly on more than one occasion," Jeanne told Ebony. Gaye's biographer, Steve Turner, concurred. "All the evidence I've found is that Marvin provoked the incident because he knew what the result would be," he told the Independent.

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.