Diana Ross: A Biography

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  The entire Ross family was obviously very upset by this turn of events. Diana hired a top Los Angeles lawyer to go down to Alabama and deal with the police there to clear her brother’s name. In the end, he was released and his name struck from the records. However, Diana still had to pay for the shattered store window. “If he had been killed, we never would have known what happened down there,” Rita would later say. “Thank goodness he wasn’t killed, and thank goodness Diane had the resources to set it all straight.”

  When T-Boy died in 1996, he was facing weapons and drugs possession charges. It’s still not even known what he and his wife were doing in the house in which they were found, though police theorized it had been a drug-related robbery that turned into murder.

  T-Boy had not been close to the family for some time; Diana had invited him to a holiday dinner in Connecticut six months earlier in an effort to reconnect with him, but he didn’t attend. She was on tour in Japan when she got the news. On the heels of what had been going on with Chico, she was said to be heartsick. There was a lot of discussion about whether she should leave the tour and attend the funeral, but ultimately she couldn’t cancel the concerts to do so. It may have been for the best. She most certainly would have been the center of attention at T-Boy’s funeral, just as he felt she had often been during his life. Tracee attended the service and read a statement from her mother: “It breaks my heart that someone like you, with so much life to live, should be taken like this,” Diana wrote. “Why? Why were you taken from us, T-Boy? It’s so hard to understand.”

  The person arrested by police for the murders—the man who owned the house and found the bodies—was acquitted at a trial in 1997. The crimes remain unsolved.

  Diana and Arne split

  With Chico’s ongoing problems and T-Boy’s death, there was a veil of sadness over the entire Ross family in 1998 that, according to some relatives, was sometimes made even worse by the family’s determination to continue to be strong in the face of tragedy. One Ross family member observed:

  We Rosses are the kind of people who refuse to let anything get to us. We get that from Fred, I think. We—and especially Diane—are all about choices, and people’s decisions being their own choices and there’s nothing you can do about any of it but just accept what people decide to do with their lives and get on with things. I think it’s a coping mechanism, maybe a way of evading certain things. I don’t know … I only know that it often felt like things weren’t really being dealt with, that there was a lot of stoic optimism about the future but no one was dealing well with sadness.

  Christmas 1998 was very difficult. Diana was feeling melancholy about her marriage, still very upset about T-Boy’s passing, and worried about the future. She performed in Japan for Thanksgiving. For Christmas, though, she would be home and so she decided to host a reunion at her estate in Connecticut for about forty family members, including Arne’s parents and many of the Ross family.

  “It was quite spectacular, really—the biggest and best Christmas tree you’ve ever seen, presents for everyone, lots of food,” said one guest.

  Fred was there, and he and Diana really seemed close, but he was very sad, I felt. He just didn’t have that glow he’d had in the past, and I realized that T-Boy’s death had really affected him. He came over to me and said, “My daughter sure knows how to do Christmas, doesn’t she?” I agreed. Then, he said, “I look around this place and it makes me think about the projects and where we came from … and I don’t know what to make of any of it, anymore.” It was a bittersweet time without Ernestine and T-Boy. I don’t think Chico was there, at least I did not see him there. Bob [Ellis Silberstein] was there, and the three daughters and two sons. You could see that there was some tension between Diana and Arne. Things weren’t quite right. I felt that everyone was determined to have a good time but, inside, there were mixed emotions about everything.

  In the spring of 1999, Diana, Arne and two business associates of his had a luncheon in New York to discuss some joint investments the couple held at that time. Diana looked much younger than her years in a short leather skirt, white blouse, fishnet stockings and blue suede boots. Her hair was jet-black and straight to her shoulders. “My wife is a teenager,” Arne said, extending a compliment. She smiled coquettishly. The meeting soon deteriorated, though, to the point where it was clear that the couple was having serious problems. One of the associates mentioned Diana’s career. “I hear that you’re getting ready to tour this year, is that true?” he asked.

  Before Diana had a chance to answer, Arne said, “Really? Well, of course, I didn’t know that, now did I?” He gave her a pointed look.

  “Well, of course, you didn’t ask, now did you?” Diana responded.

  Arne ignored her and, turning to his associates, said, “I don’t know what’s going on here when I’m gone. Not really.”

  “Diana didn’t say a word,” recalled one of those present, “but she was tense, as I could tell from the look in her eyes. I sensed it was everything she could do to just hold it together long enough for us to part company. I got out of there, quickly. Basically, I felt that they were two people in a marriage, neither of whom was willing to compromise their freedom. I wondered how long it could go on.” Shortly thereafter, on 24 April, Arne did an interview on Oslo television during which he admitted that the marriage was over. Apparently, he was now involved with someone else.

  The media reported that Diana was “shocked and devastated” by the announcement. In truth, the last she had heard from him, they were still trying to work things out. Actually, viewing a tape of the show it becomes clear that Arne wasn’t willingly forthcoming. After a long, painful pause, he admitted to the interviewer, “We are getting divorced, yes. It’s true, but damn it, I didn’t want to tell you about this. It wasn’t very nice of you to ask, either.” Still, he did say it, and on television, and Diana was upset about it.

  A flight attendant from a popular airline recalled:

  We were all talking in the galley during a night flight and as flight attendants often do, the subject of celebrity passengers came up and who was nice and who wasn’t. Because I had worked on Concorde there was a lot of interest in who I had looked after during my time on there. I mentioned having looked after Diana Ross and one of the crew said, “Oh, apparently she’s a real bitch!” I replied, truthfully, “No, she wasn’t. She was actually very charming.” I told how I had asked her if she needed any assistance on arrival in London and she replied, “No. I’ll be fine. Someone from the airline usually meets me, but if they don’t it’s not a problem. I can take care of myself.” The female crew member then said, “I looked after her on board a flight recently and she came and gave me a hug in the galley. She was quite emotional and said, “You have been so nice to me today and this has been the worst day of my life.” She then went on to say that she had been dumped on TV by her husband.

  “I think he’s going through a little bit of a menopause,” Diana reflected at the time. “He’s looking for something better or a bigger mountain to climb.” Indeed, Arne had been restless and had made some sudden changes in his life in recent years. He had just recently severed his shipping links with the sale of his interest in Greek tanker operation Byzantine Maritime. Prior to that, in 1995, he had sold his Bermuda-registered and Piraeus-based Naess Maritime. He also sold off his shares in Naess Europe, a London-based brokerage house that he had a stake in, until it too was gone from him in 1995. His personal fortune by the time his marriage to Diana was over was said to have been $500 million. After fourteen years of marriage, he said that he would make certain that she would never have to worry about money again. (Her personal worth at this time was estimated to be about $30 million.) Still, she loved him and hadn’t stopped loving him. Now, there was no telling what the future would hold for them, but it certainly didn’t look good. “He never wanted to talk about our problems,” Diana later said, “and when I wanted us to go to counseling, he wouldn’t hear of it.”

&nbs
p; Detained at Heathrow

  One of the most memorable of recent diva incidents involving Diana Ross is one that brought forth a great deal of genuine emotion from her while at the same time generating headlines around the world. In September 1999 she was about to fly home from London, where she had just completed work on her latest video, “Not Over You Yet” from the Every Day Is a New Day album. While going through security, her large silver belt set off the metal detector and she was then frisked by a female security guard. Many airports used portable metal detectors to search people but at Heathrow the security guards used their hands. Although this female security guard was doubtless following set procedure, it is easy to see why it felt invasive to Diana. During that process she became angry, feeling that she’d been touched inappropriately. Apparently, when she protested the guard persisted and told her that if she had a problem she should just file a complaint. That was when Diana lost it. “I got … loud,” she later admitted. She then went to lodge that formal complaint with the airline, but was quickly dismissed and told to write a letter about it. Very angry, she walked over to the guard, who was standing at her post, Diana said, “looking very smug.” She reached out and touched the female guard, saying, “There. Now, how do you like that? This is how it feels to be touched that way.” She then boarded the Concorde.

  Shortly thereafter, security guards boarded the plane and approached Diana. Apparently, the guard had filed a complaint, and now Miss Ross was going to be questioned. The officials actually escorted her off the aircraft—looking pretty damn sensational, by the way, with her long mane of unruly hair blowing ferociously in the wind. She was in an all-black ensemble: a silk and crêpe floor-length coat that billowed around her like smoke as she was led away on the tarmac, a black bodysuit and lilac-colored stiletto boots—a combination of Wicked Witch of the West and Greatest Pop Star of All Time. Celebrities usually don’t intend for these kinds of moments to be memorable—think Michael Jackson lying on a stretcher waving with one sequined glove at the press after being burned during a soft-drink commercial—but stars like Diana have a flair for making the dramatic even more so, just by their very participation in it.

  Diana was taken to police headquarters and detained there for questioning, not technically arrested as many accounts had it. During the process, when the cops threatened to toss her into a jail cell, it was more than she could take, especially since she was all alone. She started to cry.

  In the end no formal charges were filed and the case was dropped, but it was yet another incident that would shine a negative light on Miss Ross. The press loved this story and ate it up. It really did contain every cliché for which Diana Ross is known, in terms of her imperious reputation. She quickly became the subject of commentary and jokes on late-night and daytime talk shows. Time ran a satirical cartoon of a crazy woman in stilettos going nuts on an airliner with the stewardess saying, “Please fasten your seat belts. We’re experiencing Diana Ross.” Many commentators criticized her for losing her cool and tried to point out that superstars don’t deserve special attention—as if that’s ever going to be the case. Barbara Walters, on her program The View, came to Diana’s defense, however, reminding all that she didn’t get much special attention at all. She was, in fact, treated as anyone else would have been in the same situation—and maybe worse because of her celebrity. “They held her for five hours,” exclaimed Barbara.

  It was interesting, at least to people who were able to see past the hysterical nature of it all, to note how truly frightened Diana was of being detained and possibly thrown in jail. It does show how vulnerable she is beneath all of the bravado. On subsequent television interviews, the usually confident Miss Ross was in tears. “Yes, I touched her,” she said of the security guard, “but only after she touched my most private parts. She touched my breasts and down my back and down my thighs and between my legs. I felt totally violated. It’s wrong.” One’s heart couldn’t help but go out to her, she was just that distraught. It brought to mind something she said to me almost twenty years ago in an interview: “A reporter once asked me if I ever cried. I wonder if people think I’m just as hard as rock and have no emotions at all.” She paused to consider her statement and then shuddered at the thought. “Could that be?” she asked rhetorically, seeming truly concerned that this might be the perception of her. “I really don’t know,” she concluded sadly.

  As it turned out, Diana had never even been to a police station before—anywhere. Later, she told Oprah, “I’d never been treated that way and I didn’t think I deserved to be treated that way. They fingerprinted me. They took a picture [a mugshot] like Lady Sings the Blues… It wasn’t right.” Mostly, it appears that she was afraid of what might happen and, in the end, other than being detained for some hours and being fingerprinted and photographed, not much else occurred. One of the female officers did put a rubber glove on her hand, though. “My God, what are you getting ready to do?” Diana asked, terrified. The woman explained that she just needed to handle Diana’s possessions as she took them from her purse while wearing gloves.

  In her defense, Diana was just beginning menopause at this time and was having a great deal of trouble with it—all of the classic problems to do with extreme mood swings, hot flashes and sleepless nights. It no doubt added to her exhaustion and level of stress. She was taking homeopathic aids to help her through what she recognized as a natural process, but still it was causing havoc with her body.

  That said, even the most reasonable observer cannot overlook Diana’s imperious nature. She’s a person who has obviously lived a life of entitlement for many years; she’s used to giving orders, not taking them. Therefore, someone telling her that she can’t do something—like leave a place when she wants to go—is a completely foreign concept to her, as it is to most celebrities who are used to being treated a certain way. And when it comes to invading her personal space? Forget it. Most of us have to put up with it on a daily basis—people getting too close for comfort on the streets, on buses, subways—but celebrities usually don’t have to tolerate it and aren’t used to it. Who among us hasn’t wanted to do to some overzealous security guard at an airport exactly what Diana did, and then say what she said: “How do you like that?” But who among us would even dare think of it, let alone do it?

  Diana and Mary: battle royal

  “Have you heard the gossip?” It was December 1999 and Diana Ross was on the telephone with Mary Wilson. “Have you heard what people have been saying about us maybe doing a Supremes reunion?”

  “Well, yes, I’ve heard,” Mary said, sounding not at all pleased. “Why has it taken you so long to call me?”

  “I thought maybe you would be happy about this,” Diana responded, picking up on Mary’s testiness.

  “Well, I thought you would have called me by now.”

  They were at it again.

  The idea of a reunion of Diana Ross with the Supremes had actually taken root almost a year earlier. At that time Diana was planning a tour of Europe, and her promoter, Scott Sanders, proposed adding a segment to the act during which she would sing some of the songs she made famous while with the Supremes. She usually just performed a cursory medley of those hits in her show, but Sanders’ idea now was to include full versions and, in fact, organize the entire concert around them. She thought it was a good concept. She had always loved those hits, anyway; they were a part of her past that she’d not focused much on in recent years, and she knew that her fans would be pleased. Somehow, rumors then began to fly that this show would also reunite Diana with Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong. Was such a thing even possible? It seemed far-fetched, especially considering the troubled relationship between Diana and Mary.

  By now, more than a decade had passed since Mary’s Dreamgirl book. During that time, the two had rarely spoken to one another. Diana was, however, one of the first on the phone to offer her condolences in January 1994 when Mary and her son Rafael were in a terrible car crash, and the boy was killed. So, they were at
least on speaking terms. Also, Diana had by now written her own book, Secrets of a Sparrow, and had taken a few—not many, though—good shots at Mary in the process, so maybe they were … even.

  With the passing of just a few months, rumors morphed into possibilities and the proposed show was now a full-fledged Supremes reunion with Scott Sanders bringing in SFX, the USA’s biggest concert promoter, and TNA, the firm’s Toronto division. Reluctantly, Diana went forward with it, but did she want to deal with Mary on such a venture? Not really. However, she was facing a dreadful time because of what was happening in her marriage. She couldn’t help but feel, according to what she would later say to intimates, that if she reached back into the past, she just might be able to extract some good feelings from it to help her face the future. At least, it was worth a try.

  However, that first phone call with Mary had not gone well, and if it was any indication of things to come, Diana reportedly told Scott Sanders, “We could be in for some real trouble.” So, why had Diana taken so long to call? In fact, she didn’t want to speak to Mary at all until after the financial concerns had been worked out between Wilson and the promoters. The only reason she had even telephoned her was because TNA’s president, Arthur Fogel, had begged her to intervene. The promoters had been having some trouble dealing with Mary, he said—she kept asking why Diana hadn’t called her. When Diana finally did, she urged Mary to come to terms with the promoters and then the two of them could talk about the specifics of the show. Mary was completely put off by Diana’s attitude. She wanted to work the business out with Diana, personally. So, already the two were at loggerheads.