R&B singer Stephanie Mills has previously shared details of her short-lived relationship with Michael Jackson, but she’s now revealing what may have caused their split.
The 65-year-old singer met the King of Po” when she joined the Broadway cast of The Wiz from 1974-1979. Jackson starred in the on-screen adaptation as the scarecrow in 1978. The iconic actress/singer Diana Ross portrayed Dorothy in the film
BET shared a previous interview with V103 where Mills confessed that she and Jackson dated.
“I loved Michael,” she said. “I thought that I was going to be Mrs. Michael Jackson, but I was ready at 20 and 21 to get married and he was not even close to getting married or having a girlfriend at the time, but yes we dated. We dated for a while.”
The “I Feel Good All Over” singer claimed Jackson was a great kisser.
“[His kiss] was wonderful,” she added. “He was very affectionate, very loving, very sensitive. Michael was really misunderstood. Honestly, I really just think he was misunderstood because he was so sensitive.”
Recently in an interview with Vlad TV, Mills admitted that although they were in a relationship, their career paths and outside forces possibly led to their detriment.
Mills claimed that although “his family really liked them being together,” the late entertainer had bigger goals. “Michael wanted so much more is probably why we went our separate ways.”
She continued, “He wanted to be the biggest star in the world, and he wanted to associate with certain people that I didn’t want to associate with. So we just went in different paths…he liked and would go to their houses and stuff, and I wasn’t particularly interested in going.”
for fun do a michael jackson / stephanie mills google search sometime pic.twitter.com/q9qPGnaQv3
— Danyel Smith (@danamo) July 5, 2014
During the interview, Mills noted that despite being a superstar, Jackson had issues with his self-esteem, often triggered by his battle with acne.
“I spent a lot of time with him,” she said. ” I was like in heaven because this was Michael Jackson that was on all the covers of Right On Magazine and Ebony and Jet.”
She added Jackson would be affected by how fans treated him over his skin issues, explaining, “He was suffering from some acne things and he didn’t like that some of the fans weren’t too kind to him when they would see him with his acne.”
Mills disclosed that although he was soft-spoken, he was “strategic.”
“Michael was not a punk…he knew what he wanted, he knew how to get it,” she said. “He was very strategic in things that he did.”
She described the artist as “loving, kind, gentle, and easygoing.”
The interviewer brought up the subject of Jackson’s changes in skin color due to vitiligo and asked if that affected their relationship.
Mills recalled that during those times, “Michael was Black. His mother wanted him to date Black. Do you know what I’m saying? To be with a Black girl.”
The singer divulged that although his mother wanted him to date Black girls, Jackson had a different “type” of woman in mind.
“He wanted to be a certain way, you know,” she said. “He wanted to be a certain way, and he lived his life the way he wanted to. He liked a certain type of woman and he thought it would be best for him and his career to be with certain types of women.”
Mills avoided claiming Jackson was only interested in white women, but his public dating history confirms the theory.
His past romances included Madonna, Brooke Shields, Tatum O’Neal, and the late Lisa Marie Presley.
He wed Presley in 1994 and divorced two years later.
Within the same year, he married Debbie Rowe, with whom he shares his three children.
Sons Michael Joseph Jackson Jr. and Prince Michael, and daughter, Paris Jackson.
The Grammy Award winner stated she believes Jackson thought being romantically linked to white women would aid in his success as an entertainer.
“I think he felt he would be more accepted in the world that he wanted to go in, in the world he wanted to dominate,” she continued. “I believe he felt that … He made himself look the part that he felt would … that he would become a huge star. I believe that so he felt that for him it was important to dominate the world of pop music. That’s why he decided to call himself the King of Pop.”
Watch the interview below: