The reason Farrah Fawcett left Diana Ross in tears: “Things did not end smoothly”
As the frontwoman of The Supremes, Diana Ross was the female face of the Motown boom. When she left the group in 1970, she brought her popularity with her, selling more records, putting out more hits, and making herself a massive celebrity all over the world. It hasn’t always gone her way – she did miss that penalty at the 1994 World Cup – but on the whole, it’s been a glittering career.
Outside of the recording studio, Ross also had a brief flirtation with the movies. Her first starring role was as Billie Holiday in the biopic Lady Sings the Blues. It was met with widespread adulation, including an Oscar nomination (which Berry Gordy Jr might have ruined). Sadly, she was never able to replicate this success. Her next film, Mahogany, was a complete disaster, as was her follow-up to that, The Wiz. Yes, that is the same Wiz that starred a young Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow.
While she never got her hands on a golden statuette, Ross has clearly retained a strong interest in films across her career, including those involved in making them. She briefly dated Ryan O’Neal, the star of Paper Moon and Love Story. There were even plans to have them star together in an early version of the movie The Bodyguard, before Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner finally took on those roles many years later. Although they were only together very briefly, their relationship clearly had an effect on the ‘Chain Reaction’ singer.
In O’Neal’s memoir, he recalled a story from a few years after he and Ross called things off. He was out with his new girlfriend, the actor Farrah Fawcett, when they bumped into a friend in a restaurant. “We agree to join him,” O’Neal wrote. “When we get to the table, the last person in the world I would want to see is sitting there: Diana Ross. We had a brief fling years earlier and unfortunately things did not end smoothly. The moment Diana spots us she bursts into tears and runs into the ladies’ room. And she doesn’t come out.”
This was in 1982. O’Neal had met and started dating Fawcett about three years earlier, not long after his split from Ross. As for the singer, she would have been a couple of years into her relationship with Gene Simmons, the bassist from Kiss, which has got to be one of the weirdest musical romances of all time. Both parties had clearly moved on, but old wounds can take a long time to heal.
Ultimately, O’Neal ended up with the right person, and his relationship with Fawcett would dominate his personal life. They were originally together for 18 years and had a son together before their relationship broke down. According to Tatum O’Neal, Ryan’s daughter from his first marriage, he was physically abusive towards her and other women he had dated. However, a few years later, the pair reconciled. They remained together until Fawcett’s death from anal cancer in 2009; the very same day that Ross’ old co-star and label-mate Micheal Jackson also passed away.
O’Neal himself passed away in 2023. As for Ross, she was married to Norwegian shipping magnate Arne Næss Jr from 1986 until 2000. Her current romantic status remains unknown.
