True love story: Diana Ross and Michael Jackson - P.M. News (2023)

By Marina GKane DD

Diana Ross, 14 years older, was the love in Michael Jackson’s life. She was ‘’ his mother, his lover and his friend’’. She was the love that always escaped him.

He met her in 1969 when the Jackson 5 signed to Motown. Motown founder Berry Gordy, with whom Diana had an affair and a daughter out of wedlock, was mesmerized with Michael Jackson , who combined James Brown and Sammy Davis jr in one . Diana Ross was credited for discovering the Jackson 5 but in fact she didn’t. That was a PR stunt as it was that Michael Jackson was nine years old , when in fact he was 11 in 1969. Those were both Berry Gordy’s ideas.

Gladys Knight and Suzanne De passe in fact discovered the Jackson 5.

Michael moved in with Diana in 1969 and he lived with her for a year until his family moved permanently from Gary, Indiana to Encino, California in 1971. He called Diana ‘’mamma’’ and ‘’ his girlfriend’’. Katherine Jackson’s (his mother) wrote in her book MJ used to call Diana Ross “Mamma”.

This is also what Michael’s mom said: “ When Diana Ross was named to play Dorothy, Michael had further incentive to land a role in the movie; he’d been in love with her ever since he and his brothers had been her house guests. “You’re not pretty until you start looking like Diana!” he would tease La Toya and Janet.

Michael Jackson idolized Diana Ross. He thought her the perfect woman. He thought a woman had to look like Diana to be beautiful. She was his mentor at work and a mother figure . He wanted to marry her. Allegedly , they were engaged twice. Both times she broke off the engagement. Marrying a 14 and a half year younger than her Michael Jackson would have been a career killer.

In 1977, Michael Jackson and Diana Ross filmed the Wiz in New York. He was 19 years old.

J. Randy Tarraborelli on The Wiz shoot, 1977 (published December 15 2000)

Diana Ross, while filming The Wiz, was asked to Michael Jackson’s apartment in New York and stayed the night. One of Diana’s assistants said he had been trying to get hold of both of them all morning as they were late for filming. He said that he eventually got hold of them on the phone and was surprised to find they were in his apartment and that she had apparently spent the night there. Later on during the shoot Diana was apparently overheard talking to some girlfriends of hers and said to one of them, “well, I’ll tell you one thing, Michael definitely isn’t gay.” When this assistant asked Michael if anything had happened between them, Michael said, “you’d have to ask her that,” and when he asked Diana, she told him he needed to ask Michael.

[Tatum and I] developed into a real close relationship. I fell in love with her (and she with me) and we were very close for a long time. Eventually the relationship transcended into a good friendship. We still talk now and then, and I guess you’d have to say she was my first love – after Diana. When I heard Diana Ross was getting married, I was happy for her because I knew it would make her very joyous. Still, it was hard for me, because I had to walk around pretending to be overwhelmed that Diana was getting married to this man I’d never met. I wanted her to be happy, but I have to admit that I was a bit hurt and a little jealous because I’ve always loved Diana and always will. Moonwalk

David Gest. “Michael told me about being on the set of a movie and…one of the leading ladies invited him to her room to watch a movie and I guess the saying would be ‘she jumped his bones!'”

Frank DiLeo. “I know some of the stars Michael had been with. I’ll take that to my grave”

Michael turned 24 in August. He says he has finally taken charge of his life and career (“I pay people and I tell them what to do”). There’s a new lady he likes a lot, and he’s as happy as he has ever been. Michael wants a “real nice place for my mother, because we’re very, very close, you know” and “I want it to be real nice because this is where I plan to spend most of my time until I get married and move to Switzerland.” Ebony, December 1982.

(Dirty Diana by MJ was all about Diana Ross

The song (DD) is 100% about Diana Ross! She was the Love of his life, and after she promised to marry him, he thought his dream was finally coming true. She agreed to marry him in the mid 80s, and accepted his ring. You see it on her finger at the Motown 25th show and the AMA of 84. In fact, at the AMA is the first time she kissed him (in the mouth-in public!) She was also holding his face in her hands so people could see the ring. She was testing the waters to see how the public would react -Diana has always done that.They then allegedly told his mother together. Katherine Jackson threw a fit. She told Diana she was too old for her son, and that she was soiling him. She called the papers, and told reporters. Reporters began following and harassing Diana. They kept making age cracks and calling her a cradle robber and the like. Diana could not take the pressure, she ran off with Arne Naess instead, and left MJ devastated! He was so angry and upset, he wrote a ton of love and heartbreak songs about her.

The reason he did this is because Diana left him for a (famed mountain climber!) -and he was letting her know he was not going to let her go, that he was going to keep fighting for her. After he stopped crying, he got angry. He had spent millions buying her whatever she wanted. He had spent years trying to marry her. He wrote Dirty Diana and it was mean spirited, and designed to make her look like a slut! It was originally much worse. But MJ wrote it as a revenge song to her for breaking his heart. That’s why he said ‘She likes the boys in the band”..Diana loved musicians and dated Lionel Richie of commodores, Barry Gibb of the Bee gees and Gene Simmons of Kiss WHILE when she was supposed to be with Michael! She also caused a life long feud between he and Gene when she slept with Gene and called out MJ’s name! Gene blamed MJ and they were enemies for life.

This is also why he said she would say JUST MAKE ME A STAR!!! MJ felt that she just wanted fame and money even over the man who desperately loved her (HIM) {The part about her saying he’s not coming home because he’s sleeping with me! is him describing her behaviour every time he would try valiantly to get her out of his system, and try to be with someone else.} She would mysteriously show up, get jealous, and try to wrap herself around him.(instantly, he would be drawn back in). Go watch Di when MJ had the publicity date with Madonna, she went and sat in his lap, and hogged all his attention. Go watch her when Liz Taylor came on stage to give him moral support after Diana married and he was obviously very upset. Diana was on stage flirting with Lionel Richie, and the moment Liz came and tried to hold MJ’s hand, Diana rushed over and grabbed his arm, she also moved in between them during the song and tried to push Liz away! When Brooke was his date for the AMAs she did the same. She was on stage, so she flirted from the stage with him, and blew kisses! When he came up to get his award, she latched on and flirted so hard, she forgot her lines! That’s what he was talking about, her refusing to commit, but coming in to ruin every relationship he had with other women, even platonic ones.

He wrote the song and made her sound like a whore. The 2nd verse really went in hard at her, and all but called her a whore.

When Quincy Jones heard the song he flipped out! He said everyone would know it was about her, and begged MJ not to do that to her. He told him to tone it way down, and change the 2nd verse so it sounded like a groupie. Then to just tell everyone it was about groupies when they asked. That’s what they did, but Diana knew it was about her, and she was so angry she didn’t speak to Michael for weeks. When Diana forgave him, and started speaking to him again, she joked about him making that song about her, and even recorded her OWN version of it, and used it as an intro to her show!!

This song is about Diana Ross and his feelings of being seduced and still attracted to her, despite them breaking up and her marrying another man. The 1st and 3rd verses reflect this. The 2nd verse was added about the groupie at the suggestion of Quincy Jones. He advised Michael the song title and the lyrics are too personal and he ran the risk of their secret affair getting exposed. Not to mention Michael would have to explain the meaning of the lyrics when asked about the song. So to have an explanation of the lyrics the 2nd verse was added so that he could simply say the song was about groupie. The truth is in his lyrics and the first and last verse are too personal to be talking about one night stand relations with a stranger. Michael also liked to use double entendres in his songs. He was still angry at Diana for hurting him and he wanted to use this song to hurt her. Look up what the word groupie meant in Motown language and you will understand why Ross was indeed hurt by this and decided to use this intro on one of her albums to show the message was received.

MJ was hopelessly in love with Diana .

He was like a man possessed. He had a large room in his home filled with photos, pics, painting of Diana Ross and it also contained 1000s of candles burning for her 24/7 (an Obeah man gave him the stupid idea when he was a kid, that burning the candles with a centre picture-of your beloved, would keep her from leaving you) .So he always had 1000s of candles burning to central pictures of Diana ( 24-7). That same scene was replicated in the video, when he had the crowd holding up 1000s of candles to his beloved “Diana’ at the end!! Diana is the ONLY woman he ever had this type of candle-ceremony for! This song has her written all over it, she was the love of his life, he acted so differently around her and they had undeniable chemistry. And why else would he put her in his will to look after his kids? Deep down he wanted her to be the mother of his children.

*This article by Marina Gkane of the National Kapodistrian University of Athens was first published in Quora