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- [00:05]
Jake Brennan
Double Elvis.
- [00:07]
Narrator
You know how it goes. Getting super into something that can lead to watching it, listening to it, reading about it, maybe even picking up something to go with it. That's where prime comes in. Amazon prime isn't just fast free delivery, though to be honest, that's a lifesaver. It's also prime video, Amazon music, and so much more. Whatever the interest, it's on Prime. Lately there's been a dive into new recipes, catching up on lifestyle documentaries, and building the perfect playlist to match. And prime has been part of it all. It's like a one stop shop for any passion, whether it's fashion, food, family, or discovering the next favorite show. So for anyone always exploring something new or rediscovering something meaningful, prime is right there. Whatever you're into, it's on Prime. From streaming to shopping, it's on Prime. Visit Amazon.comprime to get more out of whatever you're into. Amazon.comprime ready for a new way to play?
- [01:04]
Jake Brennan
Chumpa Casino lets you spin and play your way to fun anytime, anywhere. Enjoy classic slots, blackjack and live casino games, all with just a few clicks. Have fun with no fuss. Simply sign up and receive your free welcome bonus plus daily login rewards to keep the fun going. Let's Chumba. No purchase necessary. VGW Group voidware prohibited byLaw21/TNCS apply this episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners. Please check the show notes for more information. Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a story about voices. Voices that were meant to sing in perfect harmony, but instead lied and betrayed. It's about believing in the lie and burying the lie, and about what happens when the lie can no longer be silenced. It's a story about suits, furs, a pair of Dobermans with gangster names, and a star, Tammy Tyrell who lit up every room she walked into and whose voice made Marvin Gaye cry. It's also a story about the man who nearly destroyed her, a walking, talking, coked up time bomb in horned rims and sequins. This is a story about the Temptations and the disgrace they never sang about. And since we're talking about the Temptations, of course, this is also a story about great music. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show. That wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my melotron called Detroit Schlock City MK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel and why would I play you that specific slice of choir boy cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on March 16, 1970. And that was the day that rising Motown star Tammy Terrell died at the age of 24. A death that instantly cast suspicion on her abusive ex, David Ruffin, who it was whispered, was to blame for one of the most shocking scandals in R and B and pop music history. On this special Part two episode, Voices, Lies, Suits, Furs, Dobermans, A coked up time bomb. Tammy Terrell and the Temptations I'm Jake Brenn. This is Disgraceland. February 6th, 1967, the Houston Astrodome. The bell signaling the start of the seventh round rang out. The roar of the crowd was deafening. Ernie Terrell lumbered from his corner of the ring, gloves up, game face on. But that's all it was at this point. A brave face, the one time heavyweight championship was struggling. His left eye was swollen shut, his legs were wobbly, and the only thing he was about to punch was a one way ticket to his own private palookaville. He met his opponent in the middle of the ring, the mat feeling as spongy as a slab of rotted hardwood under his feet. A left hook came in like a wrecking ball and sent Ernie to the ropes. He clung to them in a desperate attempt to stay upright. And for the moment it worked. His one good eye watched those two giant fists come at him over and over, raining down on him, trying to pummel him into nothingness. And then in addition to the non stop barrage of punches, came a flurry of shit talking from his opponent's mouth, which he was now shouting hoarsely through the teeth clenched around a wet mouth guard. What's my name? What's my name? Ernie absorbed each blow, the physical ones and the verbal ones, as he looked up at his opponent, Muhammad Ali, his eyes burning red like hellfire. Like the devil himself. A manifestation of Ernie's reckoning. Standing at a sweaty six foot three, a man who wasn't going to stop until Ernie Terrell was flat on the mat. Before the fight, during a press interview, Ernie had called Ali not by his Muslim name, but by his given name, Cassius Clay. Nothing disrespected or pissed off Muhammad Ali. More for Ernie, it was an honest mistake. At least that's what Ernie was saying. But it was a mistake that he was paying dearly for. Now, after 15 rounds, Muhammad Ali won by unanimous decision. And neither Ernie Terrell nor the world would ever get his name wrong. Again, two years earlier, in 1965, when Ernie Terrell was still the World Boxing association champ, his name was the one that meant something. Or at least it did to Thomasina Montgomery, an aspiring R B singer who had shortened her first name to Tammy and took Ernie Terrell's last name for her own. It was rumored that Tammy had married Ernie, but there's no record of this. So it stands to reason that the surname was simply a strong, recognizable choice for a little known singer on the come up. But Tammy Terrell shared more than just a name with the WBA boxing champ. She shared Ernie's pain and humiliation. And she too got the shit kicked out of her. Not by Muhammad Ali, of course, but instead by the so called hardest working man in show business, James Brown, who'd hired her as a backup singer and then put those hardest working hands all over her. In 1965, when Tammy left James Brown's Revue, when she left her hometown of Philadelphia and went to Detroit, where the sound of young America was being created, where there was swinging, swaying and records playing, she put on Ernie Terrell's brave face. But on the inside, she was a woman fractured, and not just by the Godfather of Soul. She'd suffered abuse from men and boys since she was 11 years old. But no one could see this woman. Or should I say, people chose not to see this woman. This was 1965, after all. One year after Time magazine published an article about a study in a medical journal in which doctors, actual doctors, described male physical abuse toward women as temporary therapy, unquote. So when most people looked at Tammy Terrell, they looked past the telltale signs of abuse, instead focusing on her breathtaking beauty. She walked into a room, she sat down at your table, and all eyes were on Tammy. Women were jealous, and men were ready to throw it all away if she asked them to. Men like Motown's Barry Gordy, who was so smitten he forgot all about Diana Ross for a hot minute when he saw Tammy perform at a Detroit nightclub. And it didn't take long for Gordy to sign her to his label, which he did on her 20th birthday, April 29, 1965. The timing of Tammy's official signing was fortuitous. It happened just weeks after Motown finally crossed over from R and B to the pop chart, thanks to a number one hit by one of their most reliable vocal groups, the Temptations. My girl had a heartbeat bass guitar, finger snaps, an ascending guitar line and swelling strings and bright brass. And of course, those striking vocal harmonies, all hallmarks of the Trademark Motown style. My Girl was, by anyone's estimation, a monster tune. And it was designed to be so at Motown. One of the steps in Berry Gordy's auto industry inspired studio factory system was quality control. He would play a newly recorded song for a cross section of employees in order to determine if it was good enough to release. Part of this process was to ask the group of people the same bulletproof question every time. If you had $1, would you spend that dollar on this record or would you buy a hot dog? Pretty much every time people chose one of those Detroit style Coney dogs over the song. But that wasn't the point. The point was how long it took everyone in the room to opt for the hot dog. The longer the pause, the harder the decision, the better the song. And while My Girl didn't make everyone in that quality control meeting pass on the hot dog, it did make their deliberation an arduous one. And well, any song that could compete with basic human sustenance like that was a sure fire hit. But the other thing that My Girl had going for it was that it was the first Temptation song to be sung by the newest member of the group. Until this point, David Ruffin had been holding down harmony vocals with Otis Williams and Melvin Franklin while Eddie Kendricks and Paul Williams got all the glory on lead. But Smokey Robinson, Motown's resident Shakespeare and one of My Girl songwriters, saw something in David that no one else did. David's voice was mellow, but it was also gruff. A two sided coin that could make the ladies swoon and then make them cry. Smoky called him a sleeping giant. So Smoky woke the giant up. And once the giant got his first taste of success, right off the bat, he wanted more. The finest white boots and softest suede vests. The sleekest, loudest bike rolling down West Grand Boulevard. Sequined silk pants and diamond encrusted horn rimmed glasses. To underscore his newfound status, he got a pair of Dobermans and he gave them gangster names. Bonnie and Clyde. Because the giant was not just a singer and a hit maker. He was a straight up gangster. And like all gangsters, he wanted the most desirable women in town draped across his arm. The giant wanted none other than Tammy Terrell. And on the first night they met in a Motor City nightclub, he got her. Neither of their lives would ever be the same again. I love my kids. I spoil the crap out of them. But until I started using Monarch Money and used their budgeting app and I actually sat down and I was actually going through what I was spending that I realized how much I was spending on garbage that my kids frankly don't need. They've got this whole complete financial command center for everything. I mean, it's not just for what I'm spending. It's for what I'm saving. It's for what I'm investing in. It's for what my goals are, my family's goals. But now that I have this financial command center, I can integrate my kids savings accounts as well and I can clearly show them what we're spending money on and I can show them how much money they have and how quickly that would go down to zero if they were to be spending $70 on a Lego box on a whim, you know, something they're going to use for, I don't know, 90 minutes before they forget about it for the rest of their lives. But of course, Monarch Money does so much more than that. You can easily get a hold of your personal finances. You can become your own personal cfo. Like I said, this whole financial command center that's part of their budgeting app is fantastic. It's going to give you visibility and control into what you're spending, into what you're saving. It's going to help you earn more and start growing. Highly recommend Monarch. Start managing your finances to build the life you actually want. Guys, without a clear financial picture, financial dreams are just that. They're just dreams, okay? And they can feel out of reach. And Monarch makes managing money simple even if you're super busy. Especially if you're super busy. All right. Monarch Money, the budgeting app that I'm talking about, over a million households are using it. It was named Wall Street Journal's best budgeting app of 2025. Get control of your overall finances with Monarch Money. Use code disgraceland@monimalmoney.com in your browser for half off your first year. That's 50% of your first year. @monimalmoney.com with code DISGRACELAND, every week on.
- [14:23]
Narrator
The Moth podcast, real people tell their stories of heartbreak, humor and crime live on stage.
- [14:29]
Jake Brennan
This identity theft was different because this person had messed with the most dangerous type of person that exists, which is someone with limited options and a lot of free time.
- [14:41]
Narrator
For mysteries big and small. Follow and listen to the Moth on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [14:52]
Jake Brennan
I think the last time I spoke to you guys about Quint, I told you about the transit quilted duffel bag that I got for my wife. Well, I got myself a napa leather duffel bag from Quince as well. And I just used it. We used both our bags on this family trip that we took out west. I love this bag. Okay? It looks cool, it looks casual. It looks way more expensive than it is. Not that I care about that, but it just, it's good quality and you can kind of tell when you just look at it. I stuffed it with my new double brush stretch jacket from Quince. You know when you're going out to dinner, it's summertime, it's too hot to wear a jacket, but you're going somewhere kind of dressy, but you don't want to wear a blazer. You're kind of in that sort of formal fashion. No man's land. That's where the double brushed stretch jacket from Quints comes into play. It dresses you up casually and smartly and you can rock it out around town as well if you're just running errands and you want to look good. This jacket is my new favorite addition to my wardrobe. And like I said, it along with my go to Quint's Merino all season base tees fit perfectly in my Nappa leather duffel bag from Quince. The best part of all this, everything with Quince is half the cost of similar brands. Okay? That's important. That matters. And they can do this because they work directly with top artisans. They cut out the middlemen and Quints gives you luxury pieces without the markup. So keep it classic and cool with long lasting staples. From quints go to quint.com Disgraceland for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com Disgraceland to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com Disgraceland in late July of the fourth consecutive day, the racially charged riots set fire to the streets of Detroit. Over on Woodward Avenue, the Algiers motel became a particularly infamous spot when three white police officers shot and killed three innocent black teenagers there. In the weeks and months and years before this tragedy, however, the Algiers was already well established as an infamous locale in town, seeing as it was a magnet for sex workers, drug dealers and the Detroit PD's vice squad. It's also said to be the first place David Ruffin took Tammy Terrell just hours after they met. And their immediate sexual attraction demanded equally immediate privacy action. A sorted joint like the Algiers was custom made for moments like these. It was cheap. It was the last place two successful entertainers would be expected to frequent. And it was only a mile and a half down the road from where David and Tammy were now both working@ Hitsville USA. It wasn't long, however, until David decided that he wasn't content to just hide Tammy away at the Algiers. He wanted the world to know that she was just like the song said, his girl. And he spared no expense in doing so. He bought the two of them matching mink and sable threads as well as rings and watches made of gold and diamonds. They traveled in a stretch limo when they weren't riding on David's motorcycle, and he got them an apartment on the west side of town with bear and leopard skin rugs in the sitting room, an octopus in formaldehyde positioned under a lavish glass coffee table in the living room, and a giant painting of a black stallion that he hung over the bed. David Ruffin lived as excessively as any of Motown's stars, perhaps driven by a desire to make up for lost time, that time being the years he spent living in poverty, growing up with no running water in rural Mississippi. And so, as The Temptation scored four more number one R&B singles in 1966 and two number one R&B albums the following year with the hit songs Ain't Too Proud To Beg and I Wish It Would Rain, featuring David Ruffin on lead vocal for the Temptation's new superstar, excess became part of the ongoing celebration. It was a celebration fueled by cocaine and women, because Tammy Terrell wasn't David Ruffin's one and only. There was Jenna, the former Go Go dancer that David knocked up and stepped out on. And then there was Sandra, his wife back home, the one David cheated on with the Go Go dancer and who, as David told the dancer, had died in childbirth but in reality was very much alive and busy raising his two other infant children. Tammy was oblivious to the existence of these other women, at least for a while. So oblivious, in fact, that she said yes when David proposed to her. But to those not blinded by gaudy diamond rings and even gaudier furs, to those on the outside looking in all the showy clothing and the cocaine, the multiple women, it painted a very clear picture. Shelly Berger, the Temptation's longtime manager, put it this way, bluntly, and I quote, I think David dreamed of being a pimp. Even David's older brother Jimmy, whose ballad what Becomes of the Brokenhearted cracked the Billboard top 10 in the summer of 1966, used the word pimping to describe how David used and disposed of the women around him. But Tammy Tyrell wasn't one to be played by any of this pimp shit. Neither was she the type who was going to let herself get tossed by the wayside. She was a Tyrell. She was a born fighter. The window sash was thrown open and the balmy Detroit air came flooding in. Tammy was already hot, her heart racing, her head pounding. The tears running down her face and the warm blast from outside did her no favors, just like David did her no favors. Not anymore. Not since she'd discovered the truth that he was a liar and a cheat. She was just another spoil that the giant reaped. She stuck her head out the open window and then the upper part of her torso followed. She half contemplated going all the way just to piss David off. Wouldn't that be something? It would give a whole new meaning to his song I know I'm losing you, and that motherfucker would be sorry once and for all when he looked down from the apartment to see her lifeless body splayed out on the sidewalk below. As passersby stopped panicking, screaming in shock, she couldn't help but see the irony of her situation on the radio. Her duets with young America's beloved Marvin Gaye, songs like Ain't no Mountain High Enough and you're Precious Love, the songs that were making her famous Temptations famous actually were a stark contrast to the bitter drama playing out in her real life. It's a common misconception that Tammy and Marvin were lovers, because the classic duets they cut are some of the greatest love songs ever. But theirs was a collaborative musical love. It existed on the microphone and on the records. The love that Tammy had experienced with David, or what she thought was love. Maybe what she fooled herself into believing was love. That love hurt. Marvin's love didn't hurt like that, which made her wonder, was it even real? Right then David came storming out of the bedroom in his underwear, coked up as usual, squeezing his runny nose in between his fingers. Go ahead. He yelled at Tammy. Do it. He got closer, close enough now that she could smell his sweat and his cologne. It was a combination that she once found undeniable, but now it just made her angry. She was also angry that she was failing to elicit the desired response. She knew that what David was doing at this moment was exactly what she was doing, trying to hurt him. Go ahead. He yelled. Jump. Tammy's head was throbbing. She'd endured headaches her entire teenage and adult life, but her time with David had made them even worse. She pulled herself back inside the apartment and slammed the window Shut. Fuck you, David. All you care about is yourself. Eddie and Otis and the other guys told me all about your bullshit. How you want to change the name of the band to David Ruffin and the Temptations like your Diana fucking Ross. Bitch. You're not even Mary fucking Wilson. Why don't you take your stupid country ass and fuck off back to whatever backwater hole you crawled out of? Or better yet, go crawl him back to the latest and greatest whore you just fucked. Yeah, I know all about that shit, David. It takes two, babe. Just like Marvin said. Do you want to talk about a real man, David? Marvin's a real man. Marvin's a class act. He's not like you and he's not like James Brown. He doesn't need to beat a woman to feel like a real man. In fact, he's twice the man that you are. And he's got twice the voice too. At that, David's eyes went so wide it looked like the horn rims would pop right off his face. He walked away into another room, rambling. And then moments later was back, still pissed off, still in his tighty whities, still coked out of his gourd. Only this time, in his hand, he held a large and heavy object. And he proceeded to use that very large and heavy object to inflict maximum pain and do maximum damage to the face of Tammy Terrell. Tammy would later tell multiple people that David Ruffin hit her in the head with his motorcycle helmet. She also said that after all the previous instances of physical abuse she'd endured while with him, this one, the motorcycle helmet incident, that this was the one that ended their relationship for good. By the time that Tammy walked away from David, everyone at Motown knew what was going on. Even studio head Barry Gordy knew the score. And this was a guy who Tammy had come to see the way she saw Marvin Gaye. As a man who wasn't like the rest, but was something of a protector. But the protectors had all gone silent and the damage had been done. It was there in the cold light of day, written all over her petite body. The welts, the bruises, the golf ball sized knot that she showed to the temptations. Otis Williams. Otis is the last surviving member of the group and the only one to write a book. In his memoir, Originally published in 1988, Otis had this to say about it all. Quote, David's thing with Tammy was intense and quite tumultuous. Their relationship was definitely a rocky one, unquote, rocky, tumultuous. David's thing. Why was David Ruffin's violent and destructive behavior still being swept under the rug two whole decades after the fact? Was it to protect a legacy? To protect that squeaky clean money making image? Even the popular Temptations miniseries, it was released 10 years after Otis Book. While it didn't portray David in the greatest light, it failed to admit a deeper truth. A truth that was known to everyone who spent any time inside the walls at 2648 W. Grand Blvd. In Detroit. A truth that was the first thing on everyone's minds when the worst fate imaginable befell Tammy Turrell the day that death came calling. We'll be right back after this.
- [26:32]
Narrator
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- [27:05]
Jake Brennan
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- [28:03]
Jake Brennan
When David Ruffin's on and off again girlfriend Jenna, the former Go Go dancer he'd had an affair with while still married to his first wife, a woman who had given birth to one of his children, heard about David's affair with Tammy Tyrrell. She became distraught. She tried to take her own life, first by slashing her wrist with a razor and then by drinking bottles of eye drops that contained high levels of mercury. Neither did the job instead, landing her on the floor of her apartment, bloody and sick, where a friend found her shortly after. The first phone call the friend made was to David Ruffin. She expected David to drop everything and haul ass to take care of the mother of his child. David's response, however, was quite the opposite. Why are you calling me? He asked. Call the police. But when Tammy Terrell collapsed on stage while performing with Marvin Gaye on October 14, 1967 in Virginia after the alleged motorcycle helmet incident and after her presumed breakup with David Ruffin, David came running. He found Tammy back in her hometown in a Philadelphia hospital. At first, her dramatic collapse was chalked up to exhaustion. Her grueling tour with Marvin, performing every night seven days a week meant popping aspirin every night seven days a week. To keep her persistent headaches at bay, doctors ran a few tests and sent her home for bed rest. But before too long, she was back. After her dentist noticed that half of her face was sagging. This time, doctors discovered a tumor in the lower posterior part of her brain. They operated and removed the tumor, but the malignant growth had, for who knows how long, blocked drainage of spinal fluid which had built up around her brain. This, the doctor said, was why she experienced such debilitating headaches. So a few months later, a second surgery was performed to insert a small tube in her head and to drain the fluid. But then the tube stopped working properly, so additional surgeries were needed. Tammy would go on to have eight surgeries in total over the next few years. It was a long, drawn out ordeal during which the once stunning beauty would lose her hair, her sight, and drop down to just over £90. And when the going got tough for Tammy Terrell, however, David Ruffin was nowhere to be found. He left her bedside. He stopped calling, he stopped thinking of her. In fact, he was onto his next mark, Barbara Gail Martin, daughter of Frank Sinatra's right hand man, Dean Martin. Whether David truly missed Tammy Terrell, we'll never know. But we do know that at this time in early 1968, there was plenty that David Ruffin was missing. Eddie Kendrick's, Paul Williams, Melvin Franklin and Otis Williams were standing around backstage at the Versailles Hotel in Cleveland, looking fine in their neatly pressed matching suits. All of them wondering the same thing. Where the fuck was David? It was June 22, 1968, and the Temptations were preparing to perform the second to last show of a ten night run at the Versailles. For the first time since their inception, all members of the Temps were, honest to God, millionaires. Their latest Single I Wish It Would Rain had recently topped the RB chart in March and made it all the way to number four on the Billboard Hot 100. But then just a month later in April, shots rang out in the Memphis sky. Martin Luther King Jr. Was assassinated while standing on the balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Motel, a hotel that the temps had stayed at recently while on tour. The gold star glow of success was suddenly tinged with the bloody shadow of fear for Eddie, Paul Melvin and Otis. The simple act of stepping out onto a stage in front of a largely white audience, the lights blinding your eyes. It felt like you were presenting yourself as a target. And if that wasn't bad enough, David Ruffin, the voice of that latest number one R B single, was once again mia. It wasn't unusual for David to miss rehearsal. He'd been spending more time in LA than Detroit these days and in general his MO was this. Drive around in his fancy ass car, peacock around in his fancy ass clothes, get off with one of his fancy ass women and make it to the show in dramatic last minute fancy ass fashion. He was big time in the mall, putting forth an unsolicited bid to be the leader of a band that wanted nothing to do with with leaders. What they all wanted was their fifth member here with them right now. But David was 200 miles away in Buffalo, watching from the crowd as his latest flame, the Rat Pack progeny, tried to get her own career off the ground. So they went on without him. And halfway through the show there was a commotion. Someone made their way through the audience and up onto the stage. It was David. He slid right into the dance moves. The group was in the middle of his voice, blending in perfectly with them all, as if the first half of the set had just been a warm up for this, for David's triumphant return for the show to start for real. The audience ate it up. The Temptations, on the other hand, had long since had their fill of David Ruffin. They made sure they got Barry Gordy's blood blessing. And when they had it, they told the one time sleeping giant that he was being cut down to size. David was out and his replacement, Dennis Edwards was in. But David wasn't about to go quietly. He showed up at the next gig and the next. Wired on cocaine, he made a beeline for the stage. He was a man possessed. He was a man scorned. He was a man who didn't take no for an answer. The Temptation's road manager, Don Foster, stepped out of the shadows and got directly in front of David blocking his path. Don put his hands up. The fuck are you doing, Dave? David didn't slow down. He raised his hand and slapped Don hard across the face. And Don recoiled backward and the path was cleared. Seconds later, David was back on stage, microphone in hand, singing alongside his replacement. This went on for the next month. David stage bombing and upstaging until Motown hired a bodyguard and placed him at the foot of the stage. The big dude took the macho energy emanating from David Ruffin and sent it back out into the universe, where David received it, acknowledged it, and finally stopped showing up. The Temptation's next few studio albums took a giant step away from David Ruffin, away from the traditional Motown sound and into the realm of a post Jimi Hendrix, post Sly Stone psychedelic soul sound, full of fuzzed out guitar tones and harder wanna take you higher rhythmic edges. Albums like Cloud 9, Puzzle People and Psychedelic Shack represented a bold new phase in the life of one of Motown's most successful vocal groups. Psychedelic Shack in particular was the number one R B record in America for four straight weeks, beginning in mid April of 1970, until it was dethroned from the top spot by Isaac Hayes, new long player on May 16, the very same day that Tammy Terrell, who'd been in a coma during the Temptation's entire run at the top, died at the age of 24. Tammy Terrell's funeral was held a few days after her death at the Jane Methodist Church in Philadelphia. According to an article in Jet magazine at the time, thousands of mourners were in attendance. That number would have been much higher, however, had Tammy's mother let just anyone walk through the church's front doors. But not just anyone was welcome that day. There was a very specific and very large group of people that were forbidden from attending Tammy Terrell's funeral. Anyone who worked for or was affiliated with Motown Records was not welcome. Not Berry Gordy, not any of the Temptations, and certainly not David Ruffin. None of those people were welcome. Except for one, that is Marvin Gaye. And Marvin Gaye fought back tears as he delivered the ceremony's emotional eulogy, while one of his duets with Tammy, you're All I Need to get by, played softly in the background. Marvin's speech moved the entire room. And that song of theirs was perhaps never more powerful than it was in that moment. The fact that Marvin Gaye was the only Motown artist present at the funeral spoke volumes. And it also amplified what was now being heard through the grapevine that David Ruffin had had in some way played a part in Tammy's death. And that the Temptations, very Gordy Motown at large, Marvin excluded, they were all complicit because they did nothing about it. The Grapevine said that the abuse Tammy sustained during her time with David, being hit with a motorcycle helmet and perhaps even worse, only compounded her existing medical condition and ushered her faster toward the end End of her short life. If Tammy's days were numbered from the start, then David removed a few weeks here and there from the calendar. At least that was the Grapevine talking. Back in Detroit, David Ruffin was holed up in his place on Parkside. The doorbell rang. He opened the front door to see his on again, off again girlfriend, Jenna standing there. He let her in and then led her to his bedroom. If David wasn't mourning, he was doing a great job hiding it. But then, David was always in control of what everyone else saw. If only he could have kept control of the Temptations. Jana got nosy and started poking around one of the drawers of his dresser, which was slightly open. And stuffed inside were photos of Tammy, letters from Tammy, newspaper articles about Tammy. Jenna looked at David. Are you gonna keep all these? She asked. Why do you care? David said. She's dead. Maybe it was the thought of Tammy six feet under. Maybe it was Jenna poking through his shit. Or maybe it was just David being David, as they used to say around the Motown offices whenever Tammy showed up. Black and blue. Whatever it was, before Jenna left that day, David broke her nose with his fist. Marvin Gaye, meanwhile, was dealing with a broken heart that would never be whole again. Tammy's death crushed him. It sent him spiraling into cocaine addiction, a path that had been blazed by a certain David Ruffin long before him. Marvin used coke and later PCP to self medicate and to dull himself to the reality of a world without Tammy in it. It was a world that was beyond fucked up. Marvin didn't recognize it anymore. Far too many people were dying. And while he never got over losing Tammy, Marvin took that pain, that heartbreak, and put it into his next record, what's Going On? The first Motown album that was more than just a collection of songs and one of the greatest albums ever made. It was an album made for a new decade, a new America, inspired by one of Motown's greatest talents, a woman the great label had so wrongly let down. And the fact that Tammy Tyrell didn't get to hear her friend Marvin's masterpiece, well, that's just a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. All Right Discos. Thanks for listening to this episode of Disgraceland, our part two episode on the Temptations. Listen, if you're an Apple podcast listener, get auto downloads turned on so you don't miss any of our stories. Guys, the question of the week that I want to hear from from you on is was Tammy Terrell the most mistreated woman in music history? It's a long list, I know, but this story, my God damn just let down all over the place from so many different people. 617-906-6638 with your answers, hit me up on voicemail. Send me a text disgracelandpodgmail.com if you want to email me at scracelandpod on the socials, you're gonna be able to hear your answers. Some the of of your answers. Anyways, on the next episode coming up in your feed, the afterparty episode where we play your answers to our question of the week. Again, was Tammy Tyrell the most mistreated woman in the history of music? Yeesh. That's a tough one. I know. Get at me. We'll get into it on the after party. All right. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page@gracelandpod.com if you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to Disgracelandpod.com Membership members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad free. Plus you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events events. Visit disgracelandpod.com membership for details, rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook Disgracelandpod and on YouTube@YouTube.com Disgracelandpod Rocka Rolla He's a bad, bad man. If you work as a manufacturing facilities engineer, installing a new piece of equipment can be as complex as the machinery itself. From prep work to alignment and testing, it's your team's job to put it all together. 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