A * -ring R is called strongly nil * -clean if every element of R is the sum of a projection and a nilpotent element that commute with each other. In this paper we prove that R is a strongly nil * -clean ring if and only if every idempotent in R is a projection, R is periodic, and R/J(R) is Boolean. For any commutative * -ring R with µ * = µ, η * = η ∈ R, the algebraic extension R[i] = {a + bi | a, b ∈ R, i 2 = µi + η } is strongly nil * -clean if and only if R is strongly nil * -clean and µη is nilpotent. We also prove that a * -ring R is commutative, strongly nil * -clean and every primary ideal is maximal if and only if every element of R is a projection.