Smokey Robinson allegedly had a year-long affair with Diana Ross while married to his first wife, Claudette Rogers.
“I was married at the time. [Ross and I] were working together and it just happened. But it was beautiful,” Robinson, now 83, revealed to The Guardian on Thursday.
“She’s a beautiful lady, and I love her right til today. She’s one of my closest people. She was young and trying to get her career together,” he explained.
The legendary singer claimed he “was trying to help” Ross break into the scene at the time, but noted, “I wasn’t going after her and she wasn’t going after me.”
However, the pair ultimately ended their alleged romance out of guilt.
“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,” he claimed. “And I did. I loved my wife very much.”
It’s unclear when the pair’s alleged affair started, but Robinson was married to Rogers from 1959 to 1986.
A rep for Ross did not immediately answer Pvnew’s requests for comments.
Although his relationships with both Ross and Rodgers eventually fizzled out, Robinson said it gave him a new perspective on love.
“I learned that we are capable of loving more than one person at the same time. And it has been made taboo by us. By people,” he explained.
“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?”
In 2002, the “Cruisin'” singer wed his second wife, Frances Glandney.
Meanwhile, the “Chain Reaction” songstress, 79, married Robert Ellis Silberstein in 1971 but the pair split six years later. Soon after, she wed Arne Naess Jr in 1985 and they were married for 15 years.
