Five years ago, a circus singer called to say that James Brown had been killed | entertainment

One Tuesday afternoon in 2017, the phone rang at my desk at the CNN Center. There was a woman on the line who told me, “James Brown didn’t die the way they said he did. And I have proof of that.” The caller’s name was Jacques Hollander. She was a singer for the Carson & Barnes Circus.

The circus singer made one wild statement after another. I made a few notes and ended the conversation politely. Even if she was telling the truth, I couldn’t imagine how she would prove it. James Brown, one of the greatest entertainers in American history, died in an Atlanta hospital in 2006, officially of natural causes. I had no reason to suspect foul play.

But the circus singer kept calling. She kept saying that Brown was killed. She kept telling me she had evidence to back up all her claims. Finally my editor said I might as well go see what this woman was talking about.

And so, on a hot day in late spring, I went to the circus.

The story turned out to be even deeper and more surprising than it seemed. Five years later, I’m still unraveling all the threads. Even after the series has investigations was published in 2019, I knew there was still a lot of work to be done. I discovered that James Brown’s life was more mysterious than his death: layered with deception and intrigue, haunted by government agents he believed were watching him. After he prevented the 1968 Boston riotsBrown was convinced he had attracted the attention of the FBI and CIA.

After that strange phone call in 2017, I interviewed more than 200 people — including the doctor who signed Brown’s death certificate and a friend who claimed to have taken a vial of Brown’s blood in hopes it would prove Brown was killed. I have collected reports from at least 14 courts. I downloaded SMS from the circus singer’s iPhone. I sent the black stiletto shoe to the lab for testing.

I’ve been puzzling over the long-lost pages of a deceased informant’s notebook that might reveal whether James Brown’s third wife, Adrienne, was murdered—and, if so, who killed her.

In 2021, CNN sued the CIA under the Freedom of Information Act, demanding the release of classified documents that could rewrite the history of the Godfather of Soul. The case is pending. To this day, the CIA has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of these documents.

What happened after the circus singer’s phone call is a story that unfolds in eight episodes “The James Brown Mystery“, a new investigative podcast from CNN. It’s a story about secrets, surveillance and suspicious deaths. It’s about the fear Brown lived with until the day he died.

And it’s about one woman’s quest to solve the mystery of the man who destroyed her life.

That search continues nearly 16 years after Brown’s death. Jacques Hollander is now 67 years old, recovering from heart surgery and living with a pacemaker. But the other day on the phone she told me that she didn’t give up. She is still convinced that someone killed James Brown and that someone killed Adrienne Brown and that the killers must be brought to justice.

“Am I going to quit? No,” she said. “I can’t just walk away from what I know to be true.”