Diana Ross: A Biography

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  “I’m worried about you,” she told one of the other patients, a woman looking at a magazine who seemed to be weaving from side to side. “Do you think maybe this is too much for you?”

  “Oh, I’m fine,” said the patient.

  Diana studied her carefully. “You know what? No, you’re not fine,” she said, now taking charge. “We’re going back. I can see that you are not well. Maybe it’s the sun. I don’t know, but I’m not taking any chances. We’re going back, now.”

  Just as she had focused so much of her life on her children and family, while at the treatment center she seemed to spend more time caring for others than uncovering her own issues. Selfless? Maybe. Or, was it something more? Was she immersing herself in the problems of others in order to avoid facing her own demons? That may have been the case, as it would turn out, because Diana’s troubles weren’t over when she left the lush grounds of the Promises ranch in June. She went back on the road in July, but once out there she realized she wasn’t ready yet. So, wisely, she canceled the rest of the dates and went back to Promises for more treatment. Still, her problems were not over when she left the facility again, in August. In fact, they were about to get worse.

  DUI

  How did a glamorous superstar known for her private jet and limousine lifestyle ever end up in a sweatsuit driving a white Pontiac on the wrong side of the road in Arizona? It’s a question a lot of people were asking on the morning of 31 December 2002 when newspaper headlines reported that Diana Ross had been arrested for drunk driving. Indeed, this was a surprise. Miss Ross, all alone in a strange town, apparently drinking away her sadness?

  In the six months after her stay at Promises, Diana did attempt to pull things together. By the end of 2002, though, she still seemed lost, as if the blueprint of her life had been altered without her consent. Little seemed to matter, at least not at this time. How had things gone so wrong? She was still a great star but now, more than ever, she didn’t feel like it. It was as if intense feelings of insecurity that she had successfully submerged for most of her life had now surfaced with a vengeance. They completely engulfed her. As she confided to friends, she no longer knew what really mattered in life. It certainly didn’t matter whether or not people called her Miss Ross, she knew that much. It also didn’t matter if she had an emotional alliance with Mary Wilson or not, that was certain. Nor did it matter what the press and public thought about whether or not she would ever reunite the Supremes. It also didn’t matter whether or not she had a record deal or movie contract. In fact, Motown did not renew her recording contract in 2001, which somehow seemed unfathomable. Certainly, such a thing never would have happened if Berry Gordy had been around. All such concerns seemed trivial in 2002 though, in the light of so much tumult in her life.

  So, what did matter? She loved her children, she knew that much. But the girls were grown women now with their own lives and loves, and the boys were well on their way to adulthood. What did the future hold for her as they became immersed in their own lives?

  “By this time, I think she truly believed she would have been in a love relationship for many decades,” said one of her intimates. “I don’t think she ever expected to be alone. I don’t think such a scenario had crossed her mind, not really.”

  Indeed, Diana Ross would turn fifty-nine in just a few months, yet it seemed as if she knew less about life and love now than she did when she was nineteen and just beginning her journey out of the Brewster Projects of Detroit. “I have never been lost,” she said in the mid-1990s. It’s likely that by the end of 2002, she no longer felt that way.

  In December, in an effort to grapple with her problems and maybe come to terms with them, Diana checked into the Canyon Ranch Health Resort in the Sonora Desert, Arizona, for the holidays. She needed time alone to collect herself, make plans for the coming year. Surely, it would be a better year. Or, so she hoped.

  On 30 December, Diana left the spa after midnight in a white Pontiac, which she had rented while in town. Somehow, she ended up driving on the wrong side of the road. The police were called by an eyewitness. The officers soon found Diana’s vehicle parked at an angle in a handicapped space at a closed Blockbuster video store. She had got out of the car and was trying to get into the store, which was closed. When Diana saw the officers, she walked toward them and began to engage them in conversation. She was wearing a grey sweatshirt and olive sweatpants. According to one of the officers, she had a strong odor of alcohol on her breath. Her eyes were watery and bloodshot. Her speech was slurred and she seemed to be swaying. He asked her if she had been drinking. She said no. The officers explained that they had a report of her vehicle being driven on the wrong side of the road. She explained that she had got lost and was just trying to get to Blockbuster to rent a video. It was then that it suddenly hit the officers who she was, or as one wrote in his report, “She then became known to me as Diana Ross.” They decided to give her a sobriety test right there in the parking lot.

  Trying to stand on her left foot during the test, Diana put her other foot down three times in seven seconds. She just couldn’t do it, she was too unsteady. Then she tripped over. She chuckled and said, “Great!” They asked her to write down the even numbers from one to thirty. She couldn’t do it. Write the alphabet? She couldn’t do that, either. They asked if they could do a breath test, and she apparently agreed. As it happened, the test indicated that her blood alcohol level was, at .20, twice the legal limit and described as “extreme DUI.” She was very cooperative as they arrested her but did ask the officers if it would get out in the press. They told her there was no way to prevent that from happening once the documents were filed in the system. Yes, she would be exposed to humiliation; there was no way around it.

  The year 2003 was spent quietly. Diana decided to devote as much of her energy as possible to her recovery. Also, the entire year was spent dealing with the authorities on what kind of punishment she deserved for her crime. Though obviously frightened of jail—she said she was claustrophobic during the Heathrow detainment of a few years back—she knew she would probably have to serve time. Still, her attorneys did everything they could think of to get her out of it. Somehow, the idea of Diana Ross behind bars was unthinkable, yet it did seem to be in the offing. Standing before a judge in June 2003, she told him that she “felt a threatening tone” from the cop who had arrested her. “You know, like a command, a demand.” The judge didn’t seem to be very moved by her memory of things. Certainly, if he knew anything about the Heathrow incident, he knew that she didn’t like to be pushed around by authority figures … but such a resolve didn’t help her then, and it wasn’t going to now.

  The only thing that kept her from completely falling into a black hole of despair was her family—the three daughters and two sons who never stopped supporting her through her ordeal. It was understandably difficult for some of them to remain cordial toward those they felt had made their mother’s life hellish in recent years. Indeed, it often happens that a family’s grievances are handed down from one generation to the next. For instance, in 2003 the Rhythm and Blues Foundation presented an award to the Supremes for the group’s contribution to the genre. Mary Wilson went to New York to accept it, as did Florence’s three daughters Nicole, Michelle and Lisa. Rhonda Ross was also present for the festivities, unofficially representing her mom. Shortly before the ceremony, Rhonda came backstage to greet the Ballard-Chapman women. As the women chatted, Mary walked up to Rhonda with a big smile and outstretched arms, hoping for an embrace. Rhonda shot Mary a look, turned on her heels and walked away from her, leaving her totally embarrassed in front of Florence’s daughters.

  Unfortunately, though, in 2003 there seemed to be enough humiliation to go around for everyone. Diana’s biggest embarrassment that year was the release to the media by the authorities of a videotape of her sobriety test and questioning by officers. Obviously, this tape just made things worse for her and her family, privately. Her daughter, Tracee Ellis Ross, interviewed b
y Charlie Gibson for Good Morning America, put it this way: “Yeah, it’s been a tough one. A lot of people forget that she’s my mom, and my siblings’ mom.” When asked if there had been a family intervention, Tracee said that there hadn’t been one. “Did the arrest bring it [Diana’s drinking problem, presumably] to a head?” he asked. Tracee hesitated. “It brought it to a head for the world,” she answered. “But it had been in the family for a while?” he asked. She answered softly, “Yeah.” In talking about the ordeal she said,

  On one level it feels intrusive and I feel incredibly vulnerable, especially when the tape came out, which I did not want to see and which I actually happened to see by accident. I felt really naked. There were days when I just wanted to pull the covers up over my head. On another level it’s a relief to not be holding something like that. A lot of the fans and general public are very loving and supportive. I think that this business, though, has a tendency to enjoy people’s falls and that has been the hardest part. I was sitting watching television when Jay Leno made horrible jokes, and it hurt my heart. That’s my mom.

  While Tracee makes a good point, a celebrity like Diana Ross, a woman who appears to have been pampered and spoiled most of her life, really cannot expect the public’s sympathy when she has the kind of meltdown she had in Arizona. It’s sometimes tough for people to feel sorry for celebrities with oceans of money, especially the ones who seem imperious. But, that doesn’t mean their problems are any less real or that, in their private lives, they don’t have great sadness—it’s just that much of the public really doesn’t care. And when it comes to queen divas like Miss Ross, let’s face it: people love to see them tumble from their thrones. Indeed, on the day of Diana’s arrest for DUI in December 2002, one of Florence’s daughters was told the news by a friend on the telephone. She responded by saying, “Uh-huh. See, I knew Miss Flo wasn’t the only one who drank.” The attitude is, “Who does she think she is? See? That’s what she gets.” After all, tragedy is a great leveler. It gives the public common ground with the rich and famous, and maybe even makes some people feel better about their own lives. Sad but true.

  There’s not much that can be written about Diana’s recovery because she, by design, has simply not talked about it, it would seem, to anyone but her children. In fact, she hasn’t talked much about the year 2003 at all. It was a complex time in her life, one that does not lend itself to easy analysis or definition. She has never wanted to appear to capitalize in any way on her mistakes, and even cancelled a proposed book about this time in her life (one that had the awkward title Upside Down: Right Turns, Wrong Turns, and the Road Ahead). There were no People magazine covers about her “Surprising Recovery.” In fact, according to one publicist working with her at the time, she received numerous requests for interviews, both print and television, to discuss her problems, including a carte blanche invitation from Oprah Winfrey. “This isn’t about my career,” she told the publicist. “It’s about my life.”

  Those who know her best believe that Diana has always felt a responsibility to be a role model for younger black women. She would certainly never want to think that she had let any of her admirers down because of this very serious misstep in her life. Her image had always been one of a determined and powerful—even if sometimes unpredictable or maybe even temperamental—black woman, certainly not of anyone’s victim. However, in some ways that image was now in conflict with the reality of her life, at least at this time, and she wasn’t sure how to reconcile any of it in the public arena. Instead, she chose not to even try to do it. Her recovery was done quietly and discreetly.

  As earlier stated, those who know her well say she was scared of jail time. It brought her to tears to think about it. “She just had to reconcile herself to the fact that it was going to happen,” said one friend of hers. “I believe she went to the jail in advance to see it for herself so she could know it, be familiar with it. The problem with Heathrow was that it had to do with the surprising unknown. She wanted to understand the jail in Connecticut where she would be incarcerated. I think this time was a defining one in her life—facing these demons, facing herself, really.”

  Of course, Diana’s decision to be discreet didn’t mean that others would extend the same courtesy. The patient with whom she shared a room at Promises came forth to sell his story, which was presented in as lurid a fashion as possible: “Diana Ross Is Drinking Herself to Death—Rehab Roommate’s Own Story.” Who knows if what he had to say was accurate or not, but Diana couldn’t imagine that he would have done such a thing. The old Diana Ross might have flown into a rage over such a thing, but the new one didn’t. She had decided earlier in the year to pick and choose her battles, and this was not to be one of them even though her children wanted her to file a lawsuit. Although she was sad about the betrayal for a couple of days, in the end she decided not to focus on it. “If he’s willing to do such a thing, I don’t know what to think about it, or about him,” she said privately. “I guess there’s a lesson here somewhere …”

  Death and life

  The year 2004 started on a tragic note. Diana was at her home in Connecticut when she got the news on 14 January: a day earlier, her ex-husband Arne Naess had been killed in a mountain-climbing accident in South Africa. He was sixty-six. He died while rappelling down a mountain outside the wine-producing town of Franschoek, about fifty miles north of Cape Town. Apparently, stunned friends watched with binoculars from the farm where Arne had been staying as he took the fatal fall four hours into his climb.

  He was survived by seven children: two with his companion at the time of his death, the two sons from his marriage to Diana; and, by his first marriage to Filippa Kumlin (now D’Orey), a son and two daughters, one of whom is the pop singer Leona Naess. “If one seeks the weak points in me,” he once said, “one can find them in my desire to risk life and limb, making my kids afraid.” Indeed, Diana and the family had always worried about Arne and prayed that he would be safe during his many expeditions. She once said, “I understand that the climbing is an important part of his life and it takes him away from his humdrum business. I’d never want to stop that. But I worry about him on those mountain trips where there are no phones and I can’t get in touch with him. I really care for this man. I care if he hurts his little finger … I get insecure when I don’t know where he is … if he’s safe.” His death, even though they were no longer married, was very difficult for her.

  Just days before, Diana had agreed to a plea-bargain deal with the authorities over the DUI charge. Yes, she would definitely be doing the jail time she had expected. It was as if her entire life was being laid to waste. She may have sunk into a deep depression if not for her concern about her two boys with Arne, Ross and Evan. She immediately went to a place emotionally where she could be strong for them. Privately, she was distraught, though, at least according to those who know her best. Arne had been a great love in her life, one of only three—the other two being Berry Gordy and Bob Ellis Silberstein. Unlike a lot of women of her fame and status, she didn’t have a lot of relationships—a few boyfriends along the way and just two husbands. Though Arne had disappointed her greatly in recent years, she never stopped loving him. His death was a terrible shock. Of course, she attended the funeral in Norway. She appeared to be devastated, seeming very tired and worn down by recent events in her life.

  A month later, she had to serve her time in a Connecticut jail on the DUI charges. According to official documents, she served forty-seven hours but not consecutively. She went in on Monday, 9 February at 5:30 p.m. and spent the night and was released the next day at 4 p.m. She was allowed to remain free for two hours until 6 p.m. Then, she was put back in her cell until 8:30, after which she went home and spent the night. The next morning, Wednesday the 11th, she surrendered herself at 8 a.m. and spent the day and night in jail, to be released at 6 a.m. on Thursday. It did seem a tad unconventional and some people were upset about it. It seemed to them that she had served her time pretty much the way one
might expect Miss Ross to do it—at her own convenience. There was then a flurry of news coverage about the fact that a court magistrate in Arizona felt she’d been given special treatment and was pushing for “the defendant to return to Tucson to serve forty-eight consecutive hours in the Pima County Jail.” Diana’s attorneys were outraged, of course, and did everything necessary to make sure their client didn’t have to serve another single second in any dank and dirty jail cell … anywhere, let alone in Arizona.

  The jail sentence—avant-garde as it may or may not have been—coming so soon after Arne’s death just made Diana’s life all the more difficult. “Arne’s death was absolutely horrible—the funeral was almost more than she could bear,” said one of her relatives.

  However, as often happens in life, the strangest thing occurred as a result of Arne’s death. It presented a catalyst for change in Diana’s life. A close friend explained:

  After the arrest and during her recovery, she had a lot of questions about what mattered, what was important, what did it all mean? Arne’s death triggered something in her. She realized that what it all meant was that life was worth living, and she had to do her best with it and be strong for her children, especially for her and Arne’s two sons. It all started coming together for her, as if Arne has given her this great gift of a new life. She realized that life can just change or be over in seconds. “It’s important for me to be here every day, for myself and also for my kids,” she decided. “My children are my heart and life,” she said. “They mean everything to me. Everything else comes second to my children—my career, everything.” Or, as she said after Arne’s death, “When you know you are loved by the people who are important to you, you can get through anything.”