While hospitalized at Baptist Hospital in Nashville, Cash died of complications from diabetes at approximately 2:00 a.m. CT on September 12, 2003, aged 71—less than four months after his wife. It was suggested by writer Dulce Zamora, among others, that Johnny's health worsened due to a broken heart over June's death.[76][77] He was buried next to his wife in Hendersonville Memory Gardens near his home in Hendersonville, Tennessee.
In June 2005, Cash's lakeside home on Caudill Drive in Hendersonville was put up for sale by his estate. In January 2006, the house was sold to Bee Gees vocalist Barry Gibb and wife Linda and titled to their Florida limited liability company for $2.3 million. The listing agent was Cash's younger brother, Tommy. On April 10, 2007, during a major restoration of the property by the new owner, Cash's home was accidentally destroyed in a spontaneous combustion-ignited fire caused by workers using linseed oil products.[78]
One of Cash's final collaborations with producer Rick Rubin, American V: A Hundred Highways, was released posthumously on July 4, 2006. The album debuted in the No.1 position on the Billboard Top 200 album chart for the week ending July 22, 2006. On February 23, 2010, three days before what would have been Cash's 78th birthday, the Cash Family, Rick Rubin, and Lost Highway Records released his second posthumous record, titled American VI: Ain't No Grave.