February 5, 1981. Diana Ross was playing the Forum in Inglewood, California, deep into her set, when a 22-year-old Michael Jackson came bounding up the steps to join her on “Upside Down.”
It wasn’t a total surprise to the two of them. Diana had been in Michael’s life since he was a little kid at Motown, a mentor and a family friend, the glamorous older star the Jackson 5 orbited around in their early days. So when he popped up at her show to trade lines on one of her biggest hits, it had the easy feel of family messing around.
Diana Ross & Michael Jackson Upside Down HD Live in Los Angeles 1981
That footage didn’t just stay a concert memory. It got folded into Diana’s CBS television special, “diana,” which was produced and directed by Steve Binder, the same Steve Binder behind Elvis’s ’68 Comeback. The special mixed the live Forum show with studio numbers, and Michael turned up as the guest star when it aired a few weeks later, on March 2, 1981.
One quick thing worth clearing up, since it trips people up. This 1981 CBS special, styled “diana” in lowercase, is a different thing from the 1971 ABC special called “Diana!” with the exclamation mark. That earlier one was actually the Jackson 5’s network television debut, so the two get mixed together a lot.
The timing of all this is what makes it fun to look back on. Early 1981, Michael was sitting right between Off the Wall and Thriller. He wasn’t the King of Pop yet. He was Diana’s talented little friend from Motown, still a year or two away from becoming the biggest star on earth, hopping up on her stage for the pure joy of it.