Smokey Robinson Admits to Shocking Year-Long Affair With Diana Ross
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Smokey Robinson is revealing all while promoting his new album, Gasms.
In a profile with The Guardian, the singer revealed he had an affair with Diana Ross while married to his The Miracles groupmate Claudette Rogers.
He explained that he knew Ross as a child because they grew up in the same neighborhood. When asked if he and Ross were an "item," the singer said he and the fellow icon were "just friends" in their youth. However, when asked if there were any romantic relations between the two, Robinson admitted to his infidelity with Ross.
He revealed that their affair lasted "about a year." While collaborating, the friends realized there was chemistry between them."We were working together and it just happened," Robinson recalled. "But it was beautiful. She's a beautiful lady, and I love her right till today. She's one of my closest people."
The 83-year-old added, "She was young and trying to get her act together. I was trying to help her. I brought her to Motown, in fact. I wasn't going after her and she wasn't going after me. It just happened."
The "Cruisin'" singer shared that Ross was the one to cut their relationship short, because she was concerned for Rogers. "After we'd been seeing each other for a while, Diana said to me she couldn't do that because she knew Claudette," he explained, "and she knew I still loved my wife. And I did. I loved my wife very much."
Ross isn't the only person Robinson had an affair with during his 27-year marriage to Rogers. In his memoir, titled Smokey: Inside My Life, he shared that he had a long-lasting liaison with a woman named Kandi. While still married to Rogers, the singer impregnated his mistress.
"I can't say I was thrilled about having a child outside my marriage—I knew what this would do to Claudette—but it was my responsibility, my baby. Besides my other two children, Kandi's child would also be a miracle, created against the certainty of medical science which had claimed conception was impossible," he wrote.
