James Brown left his fortune to educate poor children, and 15 years of lawsuits came before the estate sold for about $90 million

James Brown died of pneumonia in Atlanta at 73. His will, signed in 2000, put his music and name rights into the "I Feel Good Trust" to pay for the education of needy children in South Carolina and Georgia. A separate education trust for grandchildren was capped at $2 million. A no-contest clause cut out anyone who challenged the will. He owed $16 million on a loan taken in 1999. Tomi Rae Hynie, a backing singer, said she was his widow; their son was born in 2001, after the will was signed. In 2009 South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster brokered a deal giving about half the estate to charity, a quarter to Hynie and the rest to the adult children. In 2013 the state Supreme Court voided it, saying it "destroys the estate plan." In 2018 the Court of Appeals held Hynie was his spouse. On 17 June 2020 the Supreme Court ruled she was not, because her earlier marriage had never been dissolved, and called the delay "extraordinary and lamentable." The family settled in July 2021. In December 2021 the estate sold the assets to Primary Wave for a price reported at about $90 million. In 2019 CNN reported claims that Brown was murdered; evidence given to prosecutors in 2020 later disappeared, and there is no official finding. In September 2025 the estate was still open over another dispute, and no I Feel Good Trust scholarship had been confirmed as paid.