Diana Ross praised her longtime friend as an “incredibly great force for me and many people”.

The 76-year-old singer has been widely condemned for speaking out about Michael Jackson’s alleged sexual abuse, saying: “His sexual needs are his sexual needs.”

Diana Ross recently took to Twitter to defend her longtime friend Michael Jackson against the backlash surrounding the documentary Leaving Neverland , praising him as a “great force.”

The 74-year-old icon took to his song Stop! In the Name of Love to show his support for his late friend.

Ross and Jackson are longtime friends.

“This is what’s on my heart this morning,” she wrote on Twitter, which garnered more than 18,000 likes and more than 2,500 comments in less than a day.

“I think and believe that Michael Jackson was and is an incredible force for me and many people. Stop, in the name of love.”

The diva did not respond to the comments, which were filled with mixed views from both supporters and critics.

The friendship between the two music legends was incredibly strong, spanning four decades as Ross is credited with discovering The Jackson 5 in the 1970s.

The two also co-starred in the blockbuster The Wiz in 1978 and Ross was the one who inducted The Jackson 5 into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.

Both of them acted in the movie.

This friendship was so important to the King of Pop that Ross was asked to act as backup guardian for Jackson’s three children in case Katherine Jackson was unable to care for them.

Ross loudly defended Jackson after Barbara Streisand sparked a backlash on Saturday by saying Jackson’s sexual needs “are his sexual needs” in an interview.

The singer said she had “tremendous sympathy for the men” but blamed their parents for allowing them to be “seduced by fame and fantasy”.

“There is clearly no situation or circumstance where someone would take advantage of the innocence of a child,” she said in a statement to The Washington Post . “The stories these two young men shared are heartbreaking. I have the deepest sympathy for them.”

But she sparked controversy when she said: “You could say ‘molestation’, but these children, as you heard them say, they were extremely happy to be at Jackson’s Neverland ranch. They all got married and had children. So, it didn’t kill them.”

Streisand falls into a public storm when talking about Jackson

Streisand later issued a statement saying she was “sorry for any pain and misunderstanding” she may have caused.

The recent HBO film Leaving Neverland is about Robson and Safechuck, now in their 30s, who allege Jackson sexually abused them when they were 7 and 10.
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