Smokey Robinson admits he had a year-long affair with Diana Ross

Smokey Robinson. Photo / AP

Smokey Robinson had a year-long affair with Diana Ross.

The 83-year-old singer married Claudette Rogers when he was just 19 years old but he admitted he had extra-marital flings during their 27-year union, including with the Endless Love hitmaker, who he had known since he was 10.

Asked if he had had “a thing” with Diana, he told The Guardian newspaper: “Yes, we did. [For] about a year. I was married at the time. We were working together and it just happened. But it was beautiful.

”She’s a beautiful lady, and I love her right till today. She’s one of my closest people.

”She was young and trying to get her career together. I was trying to help her. I brought her to Motown, in fact. I wasn’t going after her and she wasn’t going after me. It just happened.”

But ultimately, the 79-year-old former Supremes star called things off because she knew Smokey still loved his wife.

He said: “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. And I did. I loved my wife very much.”

The Being With You singer - who had two children with Claudette and fathered a son with another woman during their marriage, and is now married to Frances Gladney - thinks it is funny some fans have speculated he and Diana were the real parents of the late Michael Jackson.

Diana Ross with Michael Jackson at the 1981 American Music Awards. Photo / AP

He laughed: “They say I’m the baby daddy? Hehehehe! Hooohooho! They say Diana Ross and I had Michael?

”Oh my God! I never heard that one, man! That’s pretty good. That’s funny! That’s funny!

”I’m gonna call her and ask her. That’s funny!”

Smokey insisted people are capable of loving multiple people at once but the idea has been made “taboo” by society.

He said: “You asked me what happened when we get older, and we get wisdom in life. 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.

”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?”