Smokey Robinson Admits He Had a Year-Long Affair With Diana Ross: ‘She’s a Beautiful Lady’

Smokey Robinson unveiled his seductive new album, Gasms, on Friday (April 28), and he continued the steamy talk with The Guardian.

During the wide ranging interview with the publication, Robinson responded to rumors that he and fellow Motown icon Diana Ross are the real parents of Michael Jackson. “They say I’m the baby daddy?” he says. “Oh my God! I never heard that one, man! That’s pretty good. That’s funny! That’s funny!”

And while they might not be Jackson’s parents, the duo did have an affair for a whole year, all while Robinson was still married to his ex-wife, Claudette Rogers. “I was married at the time. We were working together and it just happened,” he explains. “But it was beautiful. She’s a beautiful lady, and I love her right till today. She’s one of my closest people. She was young and trying to get her career 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.”

However, Ross soon cut off the romance. “After we’d been seeing each other for a while, Diana said to me she couldn’t do that because she knew Claudette, and she knew I still loved my wife. And I did. I loved my wife very much.”

Robinson went on to explain his affairs. “You asked me what happened when we get older, and we get wisdom in life. I learned that we are capable of loving more than one person at the same time,” he revealed. “And it has been made taboo by us. By people. It’s not because one person isn’t worthy or they don’t live up to what you expect – it has to do with feelings. If we could control love, nobody would love anybody. Nobody would take that chance. Why would you put your heart out there for somebody to be able to hurt you like that and make you able to have those feelings?”

Read the full interview here.