Despite the fact that the cause of Ol' Dirty Bastard's death may not be known for several days, it seems that some of his survivors are already bracing for battle over his assets.
Though the rapper, whose real name was Russell Jones, has been widely reported to have fathered 13 children with different mothers over the years, Icelene Jones, his wife of 13 years, denied those numbers to the New York Post.
"For the record, he only has three children," Jones, 35, told the Post.
"Nothing else was ever proven. There were never any blood tests or his signing any birth certificates. He has three children that we know that are his by his wife only--by me."
The New York Daily News, meanwhile, reports that the the Wu-Tang Clan cofounder's estate will be divided among his seven children: Osiris, Allah, Barson, Taniqua, God Ason, Ashana and Shaquita.
ODB died suddenly Saturday while recording at a Manhattan studio. He would have turned 36 on Monday.
Jones told the Post her husband left no will. She said she had heard rumors of ODB's promiscuity over the years and had even dealt with one woman who claimed to have given birth to his child.
However, she insists that her three children are the rapper's only descendents.
"People will try to sue me," Jones told the Post. "They can't sue him anymore."
Jones also denied that ODB collapsed and died at his studio as was reported in numerous published reports.
"He went to sleep and never woke back up," she said.
One of Jones' children had been at the studio with his father on Saturday. He noticed something was wrong, but was sent home hours before ODB died.
"I already knew something was going to happen," Barson Jones, 15, told the Post. "He was scratching his head and looking paranoid, real paranoid. He was looking around. He just kept looking over his shoulders."
Jones said a wake and private funeral services for her husband would be held Thursday at the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn. ODB's label, Roc-A-Fella records, was also reportedly planning a public memorial in Harlem.
The cause of the rapper's death remains unclear. An autopsy conducted Sunday proved inconclusive, according to the medical examiner's office. The official cause of death will likely not be announced until after toxicology reports and tissue-sample tests return in about 10 days.