Smokey Robinson Claims He Had An Affair With Diana Ross While He Was Married To His First Wife
Smokey Robinson has been seducing women with his voice since they matured from throwing panties to throwing bloomers toward the stage at his concerts. And while most men half his age tire of lovemaking that lasts longer than a commercial break, Smokey has always been the Energizer Bunny of love. For proof, back in the day, the green-eyed Medusa of sex cast a spell over iconic 80’s hair pioneer Diana Ross. And let’s just say when it came to Smokey, Diana wasn’t about to stop in the name of lust just because he was married. Instead, she was ready to be spun upside down and inside out for a ride on Smokey’s love machine.
After a fourteen-year hiatus of sharpening his senior citizen sexiness, Smokey has returned with his latest album, simply titled Gasms. Oh Smokey, you horny lil’ devil you. This better make me melt like a stick of butter in a cast iron skillet from start to finish because that’s a bold title. But if anyone can pull it off (figuratively and perhaps literally), it’s Smokey. And he’s still the same smooth OG pimp from Detroit with his explanation about how he came up with the title.
“When people think of gasms, they think of orgasms first and foremost … I tell everybody: ‘Whatever your gasm is, that’s exactly what I’m talking about.’”
Has his attitude towards sex changed since he was a teenager? “I still feel the same way, only I’m wiser with it. When you’re young and you have those exploratory feelings about sex, you haven’t lived long enough to know the value of it. So yes, I have a different attitude to it, but I still feel sexual. And I hope I’ll always feel like that. OK, chronologically, I’m 83, but it’s not really my age.”
I’m sure this is the kind of smooth talk that dripped from Smokey’s lips when he used to set up the Horizontal Hokey Pokey with his Soul Train line full of ladies, including Miss Ross. However, their illicit affair took place decades ago during their time together at Motown. Diana, who would go on to become the Beyoncé of The Supremes, was just starting her career and looked to Smokey as a mentor. But although Smokey was married to first wife Claudette Rogers at the time, that wasn’t enough of an excuse for them not to engage in an extramarital affair.
Did he and Ross have a thing? He pauses. “Yes, we did.” How long for? “About a year. I was married at the time. We were working together and it just happened. 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.”
What happened to them? “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.”
I will never be able to look at any pictures of the two of them the same way with this knowledge. Because now whenever I hear Diana’s version of Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, there will always be a part of my brain that asks, “Is she singing to Smokey??”
Pic: INSTARImages