I think you spelled it out with the word, "overblown". It just does not seem to be Flo's character to me. Sorry, that's how I see it even with the interviews with Richard Benjamin, it was Flo who said they only had arguments like sisters would have.
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I think you spelled it out with the word, "overblown". It just does not seem to be Flo's character to me. Sorry, that's how I see it even with the interviews with Richard Benjamin, it was Flo who said they only had arguments like sisters would have.
I read all the show biz bios and auto bios, and of all the females groups, the only two rumored to have had a serious physical fight were the Supremes and the Spice Girls. The Vandellas didn't, nor did the Go Gos, the Bangles, or any of the others. With the amount of time most of these groups spent together, day in, day out, I'm surprised there aren't more of these stories. Since DR was almost jumped by Martha, one of the Marvelettes, and others, I don't doubt that this fight between her and FB happened.
Sorry the story with Martha I don't believe and the Marvelettes story I know is not true per Gladys Horton.
I think you misread what I posted. i said there were confrontations and that came from their own mouths. I've seen the interviews.
yeah I wish those interviews would have happen while Florence was alive.
Captain--again, I don't think we are talking about the same thing. What I'm saying is that DR had run-ins that were almost physical with Patti Labelle, Gladys Horton and Martha Reeves. What does Florence have to do with anything? All I'm saying is that DR PO'd a lot of people so it stands to reason that she'd have the same sort of confrontations with her fellow Supremes.
Hey Bobby,
Let me see if I can try from a different angle. The 3 individuals you mention you say "almost" ended in physical confrontation. Again, almost does not say anyone put their hands on each other. Everything sounds vocal to me. Diana is not going to respond to any of these so called allegations and I think the ones you mentioned may of had Flo present. Well, none of these things came to light until Flo was gone. If you are referring to the car and the blind kid with Gladys Horton, I don't have anything where Gladys said that happen. I hope the copying of the pant suits is not what you are referring to with Martha and Diana and supposedly Flo stepping in. I was just reading an article online the other day where Martha says she loves "ROSS" and that's why she calls her that and use to drive her around when they were younger. Patti says so much so I don't know the story there but again you said"almost". So, I will back to I don't Flo put her hands on Diana and I don't think any of these women did. Heck, I "almost" had many fights in my younger years but didn't.
Hey everybody--James, maybe you didn't see it, but Gladys most definitely told that story about the blind kid. After reciting that story, she went on to say that just a short time later DR cornered her, sobbing, and complained about how Motown wasn't releasing her "best stuff" because someone or other at Motown didn't like her! Before she knew it, Gladys said she was crying WITH DR over her lack of hits at the time! Gladys then said that that was Diana Ross, one minute she was running your azz over with a car, and the next minute she had you crying with her and feeling sorry for her! Gladys ended this story with saying Diana Ross was..."complicated."
There is also an interview with Patti Labelle were she specifically said she wanted to beat DR up because she stole the Bluebelles' outfits and they were too poor to replace them. They are friends now, by the way. It was just dopey girl group drama back in the day.
Anyway this thread is kind of veering of course. All I wanted to know was if a physical fight between FB and DR had ever been confirmed, as that would seem to be a better reason to give Flo the heave ho, than just her sticking her stomach out at a performance.
Hi Roberta!
1) If Miss Ross had wanted to run down Gladys with or without a blind boy, she would have certainly done it. If she can catch an earring falling off the opposite ear from the hand she’s going to catch it with without watching, she can hit two people with a station wagon. She was simply trying to be a brat.
2) People don’t always tell the truth. Martha Reeves started telling the same story that Patti LaBelle was telling about the outfits, and I do not believe it happened twice. Martha also said that after where did our love go, Diana “stole our writers from us‘ Like HDH belonged to anyone but Motown. do you notice she didn’t complain that the four tops stole her writers,? Mary wilson is now claiming that she invented the phrase no-hit Supremes, and it doesn’t matter to me if she did or she didn’t, it’s just that she’s been saying it one way for decades and now she’s saying it the other way and they can’t both be true. If there’s one thing we have learned from having Donald Trump as president, and I hope it’s more than one thing we have learned, it’s just because someone says some thing, it does not mean it is true, or even slightly accurate, or even within the realm of possibilities, it simply means someone has said those words and absolutely nothing more.
3) I think it’s possible that maybe Florence was very worked up and might have lost it, and certainly in this day and age, it would be grounds for dismissal, but back in the day I don’t think so if it only happened once. Florence was not fired for sticking her stomach out, Florence was fired for being unreliable and uncooperative and unwanted by Diana Mary and Barry Gordy. The stomach was only the last straw.
Agreed I've had these stories told so many different ways and from so many different sources that I am like ahhh ok. I think growing up in the Brewster Projects and in the inner city of Detroit that Diana was ghetto as hell and a tomboy to boot with three brothers and 2 sisters in her clan. So when these folks say they were going to beat her down, I am like ok well you are going know that she was a scrapper and she is not walking away from a fight. However, with that being said and most of these folks gone on to glory I don't believe any of it.
let me just add this about Patti --- So she wanted to beat down Diana about the outfits because she went out and got them which sounds similar to a Martha Reeves story. Didn't Mary and Fo wear the outfits too ? So apparently Mary and Flo were not against it and Patti was going to have to beat all three Supremes. Love Patti but she is drama.
I wonder how it would twist the story if I told everyone that it was Mary and Diana that went out and found the outfits.
Anyway such a long time ago,,,lets move on.
Well I'll probably get in trouble for saying this, but Patti has a tendency to make things up. Back in the very early 2000's, Patti was running around saying that Labelle was reuniting, and that Cindy was going to be part of it. I was shocked and thrilled that Labelle was going to get back together, but didn't get how or why Cindy would be a part of it--So I called someone from the Labelle camp and asked. I was told in no uncertain terms that there were no plans at that time for any reunion since Patti and Nona were very busy and their schedules wouldn't allow it. Yes Patti, Nona and Sarah had occasionally spoken about reforming for a project but this was years before that actually happened. When I mentioned the fact that Patti said Cindy would be involved, my friend got almost angry. She said NO there was never even a mention of getting together with Cindy. Not one word. I was told that Patti had a habit of telling people what she thought they wanted to hear.
No Bobby, you won't. Some of us started to notice Patti can be a little...off, you might say lol
I think Patti read Martha Reeves' book on when she and the other Vandellas [[Annette and Roz) confronted DMF over them wearing the same dresses and wanted to make her feud with Diana bigger than it was.
The real story is Patti and Diana were friendly BEFORE Cindy abruptly left the Bluebelles to join the Supremes and she didn't really think too kindly of Diana until they recorded their vocal parts for a We Are the World-like cover of We Are Family in 2002 and then their friendship fully repaired at Oprah's Legends Ball.
Patti LIVES for the drama, honey. Which is probably why I've been a fan since 89 lol
It would have been nice if Cindy could have joined them.
I saw the Labelle "Back to Now" reunion concerts at the Apollo and at the Beacon in NYC. At the latter show, they had a Q&A. I asked why they weren't doing any Bluebelles material. Nona replied that the show would have been too long, Patti started singing the first notes of DOWN THE AISLE, and Sarah said that if the tour went on longer, maybe they could get Cindy to sing with them. Too bad it didn't happen.
I have no doubt that Patti would have dragged Cindy onstage had Cindy been at one of their shows, but I think Cindy was already sick at the time. And yeah Patti is all over the place, personality wise. She was downright rude to Sarah Dash when they got inducted into the R&B Hall of Fame [[I think that was the name of it) and Sarah cried afterwards, saying she had no idea why Patti "acted that way." Patti said something like "this is why we didn't get a long back then" because Sarah always interrupted Patti. I never saw Sarah interrupt Patti, but even if she did, I think Sarah had the right to speak if she wanted to. Anyway, it's all water under the bridge at this point and I guess they fight like sisters fight.
Patti is the big sister. Nona and Sarah are like her rebellious younger sisters to her. But she used to write in her biography how she felt Nona and Sarah had turned against her after she made that decision to have her son Zuri in 1973, which came around the time Pressure Cookin' came out. Apparently, Labelle were on their way to being properly promoted by RCA [[they had a song Stevie Wonder wrote for them, plus their mixture of sexual lyrics and political anthems and their glammed out image - check out the cover! This was a year before the Met performance in 1974) and just as things were happening, Patti got pregnant and had Zuri and I guess she never got over it. That definitely played influence into the group breaking up just three years later. Of course what probably went wrong with Labelle was a complex thing. Nona and Sarah could write their own thoughts into what caused the breakup but they probably won't out of respect to their elder "soul sister" and I honestly don't blame them.
That sucks that Patti got into it with Sarah. Too old to be doing that.
It does seem like their relationship is like that of sisters: sometimes you like, sometimes you don't. But you always love. And I give them credit in that it seems that they get past any rough patches. I think I saw footage of Patti at some recent celebration for Sarah's birthday so they must have put whatever happened behind them.
Yeah. Patti is extra but she does care for her friends. That's one thing I give her a lot of kudos for. And I know about her history with her and Dionne Warwick getting on each other's nerves [[over Patti singing lol) but it's never a permanent thing. I read Patti's book a while back on Archive.org. It seems like they would occasionally have knock out, drag down fights during the Bluebelles years but the fights would be over real quick. The fact they forgave each other after everything: Cindy's abrupt split from the Supremes, Nona's mental breakdown in Baltimore, even the Patti and Sarah incident, etc., is a testament to their unity and loyalty.
I agree Midnight. Labelle reunited 5 or 6 times [[R&B Hall of Fame, BET Walk of Fame, an appearance at Madison Square Garden with Liza M, Back to Now, To Wong Foo, Release Yourself, etc.) so obviously they might fight but they make up. Patti and Sarah sang on Nona's records, and Patti sang on Sarah's too. Nona never has anything bad to say about anybody, by the way. I really doubt anybody is still angry with Cindy, that would be ridiculous. So anyway, all is well in Bluebelle land.