South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster once sought to protect the charitable trust established by musician James Brown’s will, but his intervention as attorney general led to a prolonged legal struggle that continues to affect the fate of Brown’s estate.
James Brown died in 2006, leaving most of his wealth to a charitable trust intended to fund educational scholarships for children in South Carolina and Georgia. However, disputes over the estate quickly emerged. By 2008, the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office under McMaster negotiated a settlement that redirected much of Brown’s fortune away from its original purpose.
The settlement awarded about half of the estate to Brown’s children and Tomi Rae Hynie, who was believed to be his last wife but had been left out of his will. The rest went into a new trust overseen by the attorney general’s office. This arrangement dissolved the “I Feel Good” Trust originally specified by Brown.
McMaster later explained his reasoning for approving this deal. “I thought it was it was a good settlement, and I think it was a better settlement than is going to eventually come out of the matter,” he said in a 2016 deposition. “If I could snap my fingers and make everything perfect I certainly would.”
As personal representatives clashed with family members and allegations surfaced—including accusations that one representative stole millions—tensions mounted among those involved in managing Brown’s assets. The attorney general’s office decided to intervene, citing its duty to safeguard potential scholarship recipients.
“The establishment of a trust for the poor schoolchildren in Georgia and South Carolina is a very good purpose, and we had the duty and perhaps opportunity to see that it was fulfilled,” McMaster said in another deposition.
Despite negotiations between lawyers representing various parties—including close acquaintanceships among some attorneys—the resulting agreement favored Hynie and Brown’s children more than Brown’s will had intended. As McMaster defended at the time: “We arranged for the charity to get almost half of it. Half of something big is better than nothing.”
Not everyone agreed with this approach. Adele Pope and Bob Buchanan, court-appointed personal representatives defending Brown’s original wishes, challenged their removal under terms set by the new agreement.
In 2013, after years of appeals, the South Carolina Supreme Court overturned McMaster’s settlement entirely. The justices described it as “the total dismemberment of Brown’s carefully crafted estate plan and its resurrection in a form that grossly distorts his intent.” They criticized what they saw as an “unprecedented misdirection” by state officials handling estates.
According to their opinion: “The claim that the settlement would benefit recipients of scholarships by avoiding further litigation was ‘illusory at best.’”
Although Pope and Buchanan were removed due to ongoing conflict among stakeholders—a decision upheld by the court—the ruling did not resolve ongoing issues within Brown’s estate management. More than ten years after these events unfolded on James Brown Boulevard in Augusta, Georgia, continued litigation has prevented realization of Brown’s vision for his charitable trust.
Seventeen years after McMaster’s involvement began, legal battles continue over how best to honor James Brown’s final wishes regarding his legacy.
