Originally Posted by
RanRan79
All excellent points. I'd add that Diana was also an extremely stressed out person throughout much of her life. The early clashes, during the Primettes and early Supremes years, were par for the course of being a young girl. Diana may have found herself in the middle of more drama than Flo or Mary, but there's no doubt that Flo and Mary had her own share of girly drama about "who said what about who", boys, etc. But when the Supremes' rocketed up into history, Diana had a lot of load on her shoulders. She may have wanted to be as famous as she was, as did Flo and Mary, but also like Flo and Mary, she may not have been as prepared for it, mentally, as would have made the transition from "nobody" to "somebody" more smooth. Add to that the fact that she may have alienated a lot of people at the time. Let's be real, strong willed women, especially strong willed Black women, can be a hard pill to swallow for some folks, including other women. Had Diana been a male with the same shenanigans, would the people who grew so annoyed with [[maybe even outright disliked) her have responded to the guy in the same way?
Anyway, as the Supremes went along, Diana had Gordy on one side and he was not always the nicest person, even to her. He pushed her to the point of exhaustion. He could be cruel. Then on the other side, she had Flo and Mary, who had grown to resent her for a couple different reasons. That's a high stress environment, considering that these people spent the majority of their lives together during that time. Then DRATS ramps up the responsibilities, as well as the fact that this was Diana solo test run, it had to hang over her head. Then the solo career comes, and there's not just music to consider, but also a movie career. Her love life was in a crazy place, babies were coming. Everyday brought a new desire for more independence from Berry. She wanted to take control of her own career, and when she did, the stress had to be a ton.
Stressed out people are quite often some of the hardest people to deal with. And Diana strikes me as someone back in the day who often didn't have a chill button. Some people are able to navigate this stress successfully. I think Diana navigated it mostly fine from a financial standpoint, but didn't do it very well when maintaining some important things in the personal department. When you look at her today she appears so relaxed. I think most of those stresses have disappeared. She's being more sociable. Some fences are mended. And that's life, so they say.
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