Diana Ross (American English: /d aɪ ˈæn ə ˈrɑː s/; UK: /ˈrɒs/; born March 26, 1944) is an American singer and actress. She is known as the "Queen of Motown" and was the lead singer of the vocal group The Supremes. The Supremes became Motown's most successful act during the 1960s and one of the world's best-selling girl groups of all time. They remain the best-charting female group in history, with 12 number-one pop singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.

After leaving The Supremes in 1970, Ross began a successful solo career with the release of her first solo album, which was named after her. From 1972 to 1980, Ross recorded four top ten albums, with her most successful studio release being the album Diana. Over 15 years, Ross recorded 12 top ten singles, six of which—"Ain't No Mountain High Enough," "Touch Me in the Morning," "Theme from Mahogany (Do You Know Where You're Going To)," "Love Hangover," "Upside Down," and "Endless Love"—reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. This made her the female solo artist with the most number-one songs in the United States at that time. Ross became popular worldwide with later songs such as "I'm Coming Out," "Chain Reaction," "If We Hold on Together," and "When You Tell Me That You Love Me."

Ross also became well-known as an actress. Her first role was in the film Lady Sings the Blues (1972), where she played Billie Holiday. She won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Academy Award for this role, becoming the first African-American actress to receive an Academy Award nomination for a debut film performance. The film's soundtrack was her only solo album to reach number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart. She also starred in two other films, Mahogany (1975) and The Wiz (1978), and later appeared in the television films Out of Darkness (1994), for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, and Double Platinum (1999).

In 1976, Billboard named Ross the "Female Entertainer of the Century." Since starting her solo career in 1970, Ross has sold over 100 million records worldwide. Between 1964 and 1981, Ross sang on 18 number-one U.S. singles. In 2021, Billboard ranked her the 30th greatest charting artist of all time on the Billboard Hot 100. Her hits as a member of The Supremes and as a solo artist combined place Ross among the top-five artists on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart from 1955 to 2018. She has had a top 75 U.K. hit single for 33 consecutive years (1964–1996). In 1988, Ross was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of The Supremes. She is one of the few performers to have two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Ross has received many honors, including a Special Tony Award in 1977, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 and 2023 (making her the first woman to win the award twice, the latter as a member of The Supremes), and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.

Early life

Diana Ernestine Earle Ross was born on March 26, 1944, in Detroit, Michigan. She was the second of six children born to Ernestine (née Moten; January 27, 1916 – October 9, 1984) and Fred Ross Sr. (July 4, 1920 – November 21, 2007). Her mother named her Diane, but the birth certificate had a mistake and listed her name as Diana. Her family and friends in Detroit called her Diane for her entire life. Ross grew up with two sisters, Barbara and Rita, and three brothers: Arthur, Fred Jr., and Wilbert, who was also known as Chico. Ross was raised in the Baptist Church.

Ross and her family first lived at 635 Belmont St., in the North End section of Detroit, near Highland Park, Michigan. Her neighbor was Smokey Robinson. When Ross was seven years old, her mother became very sick with tuberculosis. Ross’s parents sent their children to live with Ernestine’s parents, Reverend and Mrs. William Moten, who were the pastor and wife of Bessemer Baptist Church in Bessemer, Alabama. After her mother recovered, she and her siblings returned to Detroit.

On her 14th birthday in 1958, Ross’s family moved to the Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects, a place where many families lived in Detroit. They settled on St. Antoine Street. Ross attended Cass Technical High School, a four-year college and preparatory magnet school in downtown Detroit. She wanted to become a fashion designer and took classes in clothing design, millinery, pattern making, and tailoring. In the evenings and on weekends, she also took classes in modeling and cosmetology and joined the school’s swim team. In 1960, the Hudson’s department store in downtown Detroit hired Ross as its first African-American bus girl. For extra money, she also gave haircuts and did other hair care for her neighbors. Ross graduated from Cass Tech in January 1962.

Career

At fifteen, Ross joined the Primettes, a group for girls connected to a male singing group called the Primes. A member of the Primes, Paul Williams, told music manager Milton Jenkins about Ross’s talent. Other members of the Primettes included Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson, and Betty McGlown, who was Williams’s girlfriend. In 1960, the Primettes won a talent competition in Windsor, Ontario. Robert Bateman, a record executive and songwriter, invited them to audition for Tamla Records.

Before Bateman’s offer, Ross asked her neighbor Smokey Robinson to help arrange the audition. Robinson agreed if the Primettes allowed his group, the Miracles, to hire Marv Tarplin, a guitarist Ross had discovered. Tarplin later played in Robinson’s band for more than 30 years. In her autobiography, Secrets of a Sparrow, Ross wrote that she believed this was a fair trade.

Berry Gordy, in his book To Be Loved, described how he heard Ross sing “There Goes My Baby” while walking to a meeting. Her voice stopped him. He asked the group to sing again but told them to finish high school before joining Motown. With help from Richard Morris, the group recorded two songs for Lu Pine Records, with Ross singing lead on one. They also visited Motown’s headquarters daily, offering to help with recordings by adding hand claps and background vocals. During this time, Ross also worked as the group’s hairstylist, makeup artist, seamstress, and costume designer.

In late 1960, the Primettes replaced Betty McGlown with Barbara Martin. They then recorded their own songs at Motown, including “After All,” “I Want a Guy,” and “Who’s Loving You.” In January 1961, Gordy agreed to sign the group but asked them to change their name. Janie Bradford, a Motown secretary, asked Florence Ballard to choose a new name. Ballard picked “Supremes,” a name that did not end with “ette.” Ross worried the name might confuse people into thinking it was a male group, as a male group was also called the Supremes. Gordy signed the group under the new name on January 15, 1961.

In 1962, the group became a trio after Barbara Martin left. In late 1963, they had their first hit with “When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes,” which reached No. 23 on the Billboard Hot 100. At the end of the year, Gordy made Ross the group’s lead singer.

In June 1964, the group had their first number-one hit with “Where Did Our Love Go” while performing on Cavalcade of Stars. Between August 1964 and May 1967, Ross, Wilson, and Ballard sang on ten number-one singles, all of which also reached the UK Top 40. The group became Motown’s most successful vocal act during the 1960s.

Ross began answering most media questions and pushed for higher pay than her colleagues. In 1965, she started using the name Diana after a mistake on her birth certificate, surprising Ballard and Wilson, who had known her as Diane. In 1967, Florence Ballard was fired from the Supremes due to issues with behavior, weight, and alcoholism. Cindy Birdsong replaced her. Gordy renamed the group Diana Ross & the Supremes, making it easier to charge more for a solo star and a backing group. He considered letting Ross leave for a solo career in 1966 but changed his mind because the group was still too successful. Ross stayed with the Supremes until early 1970.

As the lead singer, Ross performed songs written by Motown. She sang about love and pain without showing suffering, but her phrases, like “You keep me hanging on” and “Where did our love go?” were powerful. She brought energy and life to every performance.

The group appeared as singing nuns in a 1968 episode of Tarzan. Between 1968 and 1970, Ross was the only Supremes member featured on many of their recordings, often with session singers. Wilson and Birdsong still sang on some recordings. Gordy’s high demands caused Ross to develop anorexia nervosa, as she wrote in Secrets of a Sparrow. In 1967, Ross collapsed onstage in Boston and was hospitalized for exhaustion.

In 1968, Ross began performing as a solo artist on television shows, including TCB and G.I.T. on Broadway, The Dinah Shore Show, and a Bob Hope special. In mid-1969, Gordy decided Ross would leave the Supremes by the end of the year. She started recording solo songs that July. Ross helped introduce the Jackson 5 to the public, and Motown credited her with discovering the group. In November 1969, Ross confirmed her split from the Supremes in Billboard. Her song “Someday We’ll Be Together” became the group’s final number-one hit and the last number-one song of the 1960s. Ross’s final performance with the Supremes was at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas on January 14, 1970.

In May 1970, Ross released her first solo album, Diana. Her first solo single, “Reach Out and Touch (Somebody’s Hand),” reached the top 20. Her second single, a new version of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” became her first number-one solo hit and earned a Grammy nomination. Her next two albums, Everything Is Everything and Surrender, had only moderate success in the US.

Ross had more success in the UK, where her song “I’m Still Waiting” became her first number-one solo hit. In the first two years of her solo career, she had five top 20 singles and four top 10 singles in the UK. In 1971, Ross starred in her first solo television special, Diana!, which included the Jackson 5.

In 1972, Ross made her first film appearance in Lady Sings the Blues.

Personal life

Ross has been married twice and has five children. In 1965, Ross began a romantic relationship with Berry Gordy, the CEO of Motown. This relationship lasted several years and resulted in the birth of Ross's eldest child, Rhonda Suzanne Silberstein, in August 1971. In January 1971, two months before Rhonda was born, Ross married Robert Ellis Silberstein, a music executive. Silberstein raised Rhonda as his own daughter, even though he knew she was not his biological child. When Rhonda turned 13 years old, Ross told her that Berry Gordy was her biological father. Before this, Rhonda called Gordy "Uncle B.B."

Ross and Silberstein had two daughters: Tracee Joy Silberstein (Tracee Ellis Ross) and Chudney Lane Silberstein, born in 1972 and 1975, respectively. Ross and Silberstein divorced in 1977. In 2023, Smokey Robinson stated in an interview that he and Ross had a romantic relationship lasting about one year while he was married to his first wife, Claudette. Robinson said Ross ended the relationship after he admitted he still loved Claudette, who was a friend of Ross. When asked about this, Ross's representative did not comment.

Ross was in a relationship with Gene Simmons, the bassist and co-lead singer of the band Kiss, from 1980 to 1983. In 1985, Ross met her second husband, Arne Næss Jr., a Norwegian shipping magnate. They married the following year. Ross became the stepmother to Næss's three older children: Katinka, Christoffer, and Leona Naess, a folk singer. Ross and Næss had two sons together: Ross Arne (born 1987) and Evan Olav (born 1988). They divorced in 2000 after reports revealed that Næss had a child with another woman in Norway. Ross considers Næss the love of her life. Næss died in a mountain climbing accident in South Africa in 2004. Ross remains close to her three ex-stepchildren.

Ross has seven grandchildren. She was raised in the Baptist church. In her 1993 autobiography, Secrets of a Sparrow, Ross wrote that her first performances were at the Bessemer Baptist Church in Bessemer, Alabama. Her maternal grandfather, Pastor William Moten, and his wife raised her and her siblings there during their mother's illness with tuberculosis.

In December 2002, Ross was arrested for driving under the influence (DUI) in Tucson, Arizona, while receiving treatment for substance abuse at a local rehabilitation facility. She later served a two-day jail sentence near her home in Connecticut.

Legacy

Diana Ross has inspired many artists, such as Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, Madonna, Jade Thirlwall, Questlove, Olivia Dean, Melanie Chisholm, Ledisi, Lisa Stansfield, and the Ting Tings. Many of her songs have been used in other songs or performed by other artists. The song "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" appeared in the movie Chicken Little. Jennifer Lopez and Amy Winehouse have also performed this song live and on albums. Janet Jackson used the song "Love Hangover" in her 1997 track "My Need" from the album The Velvet Rope. She had previously used "Love Child" and "Someday We'll Be Together" by Ross & the Supremes in her 1993 songs "You Want This" and "If." "Love Hangover" was also used in Monica's 1998 song "The First Night" and by artists like Will Smith, Master P, Heavy D, and Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. The song "It's Your Move" was used in 2011 by Vektroid in her song "Lisa Frank 420 / Modern Computing" from her album Floral Shoppe. "It's My House" was used by Lady Gaga in her 2020 song "Replay" from the album Chromatica. According to the music database WhoSampled, Ross's music has been used in over 754 songs and performed by others in over 399 songs. Excluding her work with the Supremes, her solo songs have been used in 682 songs and performed by others in 333 songs.

Many works have been inspired by Ross's life and career. The character Deena Jones in the play and film Dreamgirls was based on Ross. Motown: The Musical, a Broadway show that began on April 14, 2013, tells the story of Berry Gordy founding Motown Records and his relationship with Ross. She was portrayed by Valisia LeKae in 2013, Lucy St. Louis in 2016, Candice Marie Woods from 2017 to 2019, and Deri'Andra Tucker in 2021 in the play Ain't Too Proud. Ross has also been portrayed in films and television, such as Holly Robinson Peete in The Jacksons: An American Dream (1992), Bianca Lawson in The Temptations (1998), Michelle Williams in American Soul (2019), and Kat Graham in the film Michael (2025).

As a member of the Supremes, her songs "Stop! In the Name of Love" and "You Can't Hurry Love" were included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. These songs were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1994, and entered the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1998. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Supremes at number 96 on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time."

As lead singer of the Supremes and as a solo artist, Ross earned 18 number-one songs (12 with the Supremes and 6 as a solo artist). She is the only female artist to have number-one songs as a solo artist, as part of a duet (with Lionel Richie), as a member of a group (the Supremes), and as part of a larger ensemble ("We Are the World" by USA for Africa). Ross's voice from her 1980 song "I'm Coming Out" was used in Notorious B.I.G.'s 1997 number-one song "Mo Money Mo Problems."

Billboard magazine named Ross the "female entertainer of the century" in 1976. She is one of the few artists with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame—one for her work with the Supremes and one as a solo artist. After her 1983 concert in Central Park, a playground was named in her honor and opened in 1986.

Berry Gordy asked Ross to introduce The Jackson Five to the public. Over time, people mistakenly believed Ross discovered the group, which Motown used for marketing. The Jackson Five's first album was titled Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5. Some claim Bobby Taylor or Gladys Knight discovered the group, but Ross accepted the role and became a close friend to Michael Jackson.

On January 24, 1985, Studio 4 at Kaufman Astoria Studios was named after Ross to honor her. The Diana Ross Building was also named to recognize her role in helping the studio avoid demolition through her work on The Wiz. In 2006, Ross was honored at Oprah Winfrey's Legends Ball, which celebrated 25 African-American women for their contributions to art, entertainment, and civil rights. Ross is considered one of the "Five Mighty Pop Divas of the Sixties" along with Dusty Springfield, Aretha Franklin, Martha Reeves, and Dionne Warwick. In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Ross at number 87 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.

Awards and nominations

From 1971 to 2022, Ross was nominated for thirteen Grammy Awards but never won one, making her one of the most famous artists who never won a Grammy.

In 1965 and 1966, Ross received two additional Grammy nominations as a member of the Supremes. Her 1981 song "Endless Love," performed with Lionel Richie, was her only Grammy nomination for Record of the Year.

In 2012, Ross received her first Grammy for lifetime achievement. In 2023, she became the first woman to receive the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award as both a solo artist and as a member of a group after she and the late Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard, co-founders of the Supremes, were honored with the same award.

Ross also won seven American Music Awards between 1974 and 1983. In 2017, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the organization and performed for the first time at the American Music Awards since 1986.

In 1976, Ross was honored as "Female Entertainer of the Century" at the Rock Music Awards, which was her first lifetime honor at age 32. In 1982, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1994, the Supremes also received a star on the same walk.

In 1988, Ross was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard, founding members of the Supremes.

In 1993, Guinness World Records recognized Ross as the most successful female charting artist in the UK.

In December 2007, Ross was awarded a medal by the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C.

On November 16, 2016, Ross was named one of the 21 recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States.

Tours

• The Music Legacy Tour (2023)
• Beautiful Love Performances: Legacy 2024 (2024)
• Diana Ross: A Symphonic Celebration (2025)
• Diana in Motion (2026)

• Superconcert of the Century (with Plácido Domingo and José Carreras) (1996–1997; 1999)
• Return to Love Tour (with former members of the Supremes) (2000)