JAMES BROWN - BROWN'S WIDOW WAS BATTLING PILL ADDICTION WHEN SOUL GREAT DIED

JAMES BROWN's widow TOMI RAE HYNIE was battling a painkiller addiction in hospital when she learned her husband had died on Christmas Day (25DEC06). Brown insisted his wife take time off to seek help for her drug problems after she became hooked on pills she was taking to help her cope with her father's death in September (06). Speaking on CNN chat show LARRY KING LIVE last night (03JAN07), Hynie, who sat beside a pot containing her father's ashes throughout the interview, she said, "My husband sent me (to hospital). It was the only month off that we had. We had been on tour for nine weeks with only four days off in between. "We had one month off before we had to go back on tour this New Year's Eve in New York for another four weeks. "He (Brown) told me to go to a place and to get off the medications, to grieve my father and to get over it, because I was deeply affected. I was very close with my father. "I was at a recovery centre... recovering from taking medications to deal with my father's death... I was addicted to painkillers." Hynie revealed she was scheduled to meet up with Brown on the day he died after a sudden illness prompted him to call off a pre-Christmas meeting. She added, "I was going to come and my husband said no; he didn't want me to see him that way. He said that he wanted me to stay and he wanted me to get over my father and get off of this medication... They (doctors) told me he just had pneumonia and the doctors were working on him and he was going to be OK."