The widow of music legend James Brown has spoken for the first time about her fears that the singer WAS drugged and murdered.

Tomi Rae Brown tells the Sunday Mirror that the star, the iconic Godfather of Soul, was being plied with cocaine and other substances.

She says Brown mysteriously died after telling his team that he wanted to cut back on his workload.

And she believes manager David Cannon – later convicted for raking off money from Brown – held the answer to the star’s death.

Tomi Rae, 50, says after being told Brown had died she jetted home to Augusta, Georgia, only to find herself locked out of their mansion.

She says: “Something happened there that nobody wants me to know about. But whatever happened it is going to come out. You can’t hide the truth for very long.”

(Image: Getty)

Brown’s death on Christmas Day 2006 was attributed to heart failure.

The star, famed for his stage shuffle and hits like Get Up Offa That Thing and I Got You (I Feel Good), was 73.

But there was no autopsy and in February this year Brown’s doctor Marvin Crawford suggested his death was through an overdose, deliberate or accidental as part of an investigation launched by CNN.

It led to calls for a criminal probe – backed by Tomi Rae, now living in London.

She tells the Mirror: “I think he could have been murdered. They were feeding him drugs and not paying him. You don’t give somebody drugs when you are looking out for them.

(Image: WireImage)

“It was crack cocaine and Phencyclidine. Everywhere I looked there was this stuff. I’d throw it away and more would come.

“He would be on the phone: ‘Bring me my green suit. Bring me my brown suit’. And the suit would have something in the pockets.

“People gave it to him. He was never into drugs until he got to his 40s. He was into education, stopping the race war.

“But then some people around him gave him this stuff. I’d say: ‘James you’re an old man, this is not going to help you’.

“When I was there I would keep him away from that. We would dance, make love, go for rides, do whatever we had to do. He had so much energy, more than I had.”

(Image: Steve Bainbridge)

An autopsy was not carried out as the singer’s corpse was immediately mummified.

His legs were later amputated so DNA tests could be carried out as part of an ongoing battle over his £65million fortune.

Brown was laid to rest in a crypt at his daughter Deanna’s estate.

The call for an inquiry came from Tomi Rae and 12 friends, relatives and associates, including the doctor who signed his death certificate.

Tomi Rae recalls how Brown rang her on the morning of his death and spoke of moving to New York. That, she insists, was his biggest mistake.

She says: “James said he wanted to move to NYC and start a new life to get away from the South. He just wanted to do corporate gigs.

“He told me he told David Cannon. And then he was dead in 24 hours.”

(Image: Getty)

Tomi Rae had been in rehab in Malibu when Brown died. She says his managers told her to fly home to Augusta, Georgia.

But when she got there, she was locked out of her mansion – while Brown’s corpse lay in a hospital in Atlanta.

Her suspicions grew after Cannon was sentenced to three years of home confinement in 2011 for taking more money than he was entitled to while managing Brown.He died last year.

Tomi Rae was Brown’s fourth wife. They met in the mid-1990s in Las Vegas, where she was a Janis Joplin impersonator.

They lived together for a decade and in 2001 had a son – James Brown The Second.

But Tomi Rae has been ostracised by the Brown family and portrayed as a clinger-on.

She and her son were evicted from their home after claims that her marriage to Brown was invalid.

A judge ruled last year that the union was legal.

But nine of Brown’s heirs are still pursuing a claim that Tomi Rae “embarked on a series of duplicitous business machinations calculated to deprive Brown’s children of their rightful interests in Brown’s music under the Copyright Act”.

(Image: Reuters)

Tomi Rae says she feels “betrayed” after years of caring for Brown.

She says: “I would rub his legs down eight hours a day. Curl his hair before a show, then curl it after. He was hard work.

“I held this man when he had cancer, for 10 years I put up with some heavy duty, not so fun hard stuff, helping his children when he told me not to. Then they betrayed me – and their little brother.

“I was ‘Mama Rae’ to them, but I’d no idea how much they hated me.”

Tomi Rae tells how tragic superstar Michael Jackson came to her aid – giving her £8,000 when she was penniless.

She reveals: “Michael was so nice to me. He was a sweetheart. He said ‘I’m so sorry what they are doing to you.’

(Image: Steve Bainbridge)

“He sent me money after James died. It saved me, it got me an apartment, it enabled us to live.”

Tomi Rae now gets loans from investors, pending an eventual payout.

She desperately wants the family infighting to end and hopes to make peace with her in-laws.

She goes on: “Just let this end. I can’t do it any more. I’m tired. They keep coming, they are rabid and I don’t know why.

“I have never fought for anything except to be my husband’s wife.

“I just want to bury him, get him off his current resting place – last place he wants to be. I hold out an olive branch and I forgive them.

“I know how hard it was to be a family member of James.”

Now Tomi Rae has poured her heart into her first solo album since Brown’s death. Called Treacle, it includes a collaboration with the late star.

She says: “This is my way of saying goodbye to James. It’s a thank-you and a goodbye. It has been very cathartic.”

(Image: Steve Bainbridge)

Her new fiancé Pete Wassif, who she met in 2016, is a guitarist in The Tomirae Brown Band.

James Brown The Second, 18, is a budding rapper at music college.

Tomi Rae says: “Me and my son are really tight. It’s been me and him against the world. Everything from the court case to having to endure his father’s legs getting cut off.

“That’s the lowest thing I have ever seen anybody do. It was inhuman.”

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Tomi Rae plans to open a James Brown Foundation in London.

And she adds: “I’m proud and honoured to be his wife.”