He walked into a clothing store in Los Angeles one afternoon. He had no job and no name in showbusiness. By the time he walked out, he had met the biggest star in the world. Not a bad day.
Most people know Robert Ellis Silberstein by one label only. Diana Ross’s ex-husband. That’s it. But that label misses almost everything interesting about him.
He managed rock stars. He built a career on his own terms. He raised three daughters. And then he quietly stepped out of the frame and let the spotlight belong to someone else.
Here’s the detail that says the most about him. His daughter Tracee changed her middle name so his name would appear on screen next to hers. She wanted the world to know she was his too.
Who Is Robert Ellis Silberstein?
Let’s start with the basics. Robert Ellis Silberstein is an American music manager and businessman. He was born on January 5, 1946, in Elberon, New Jersey.
To most of the public, he’s known as Diana Ross’s first husband. They were married through the 1970s, right when she was one of the most famous women alive.
But he’s also a dad, and that part matters more. He’s the father of Tracee Ellis Ross, Chudney Ross, and Rhonda Ross Kendrick. All three carry his story in different ways.
These days he doesn’t use his full name. He dropped Silberstein and goes by Robert Ellis, or simply Bob Ellis. His daughters followed his lead, which we’ll come back to later.
Here’s the thing about him, though. He never chased attention. He worked behind the scenes, kept his private life private, and let his famous wife have the stage. That choice is why his name still gets searched in 2026 — people know he was there, but they don’t know much else.
His Early Life in New Jersey
Robert Ellis Silberstein grew up in Elberon, a small area that’s part of Long Branch, New Jersey. It sits right along the Jersey Shore, not far from New York City.
His family had money. They were Jewish garment manufacturers, and the business did well. So unlike a lot of people who end up in showbusiness, he never had to claw his way up from nothing.
That’s worth sitting with for a second. He grew up not knowing what financial trouble felt like. It gave him a kind of ease and confidence that stuck with him.
His Jewish American background stayed a big part of who he is. Years later, his daughter Tracee would joke that her own Jewish New York accent slips out whenever she talks to him. That side of the family clearly left its mark.
Life for a comfortable East Coast kid in the 1950s and ’60s was steady and safe. Good schools, a stable home, a clear path ahead. Nothing about it pointed toward Beverly Hills mansions and Aspen ski trips. But that’s exactly where he ended up.
Robert Ellis Silberstein’s Education
After high school, Robert headed to West Virginia University. He graduated from there and looked for work like anyone else.
Here’s a fact that surprises people. His first career wasn’t music at all. It was teaching. He took a job at a school and planned to build a life around it.
That plan didn’t survive long. He got into an argument with his school’s principal. We don’t know exactly what the fight was about, but it was serious enough to end things.
He quit. And instead of finding another school nearby, he made a much bigger move. He packed up and left for California.
Think about how much turned on that one disagreement. If he’d smoothed it over and stayed, there’s no music career, no Beverly Hills, no marriage to Diana Ross. One argument redirected his entire life.
How He Broke Into the Music Business
So he arrived in California young, ambitious, and financially comfortable. What he didn’t have was a job or a single connection in the industry.
That’s an odd place to start. He was a newcomer with no name, walking into one of the toughest businesses around. But he had time and money to figure it out, which most people don’t.
Slowly, he built a real career as a music manager and executive. And the list of artists he reportedly worked with is genuinely impressive.
He’s said to have managed Billy Preston, the keyboard player often called “the fifth Beatle.” He also worked with Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones. Add to that the funk band Rufus, plus Meat Loaf and the British rock group Status Quo.
What does a star manager actually do? Pretty much everything the artist can’t. Deals, contracts, tours, money, planning, and constant problem-solving. It’s a huge job that happens entirely offstage.
And that’s the point. A good manager stays invisible while the artist shines. So Robert Ellis Silberstein spent his career doing important work that almost never got his name in print.
The Day He Met Diana Ross
For years she’d been in a relationship with Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown and her boss. He discovered her, shaped her career, and loved her. But he would not marry her.
His reason was blunt. He later told Barbara Walters that he loved her but wasn’t “selfish enough” to marry her and pull her away from stardom. He said he was more in love with her becoming a megastar than anything else.
Meanwhile, Diana wanted a family. Badly. She said she’d traveled so much that she’d become “temporarily insane,” and that there was no one to bring it all home to. She even thought about adopting a child as a single mother.
Their Wedding and Marriage
The age gap here is worth noting. Robert was 30 when they met, which made him one year younger than Diana. He was also 15 years younger than Berry Gordy. That’s a big swing.
How long did they date first? Reports don’t agree. One account says they spent a year and a half together before things turned romantic. Another claims they dated only two months before marrying. So take either version with care.
What everyone does agree on is the sweetest detail. Robert gave Diana a gift of red pajamas that matched his own. She later said that was the moment they realized they were actually a couple.
They married on January 20, 1971. She was one of the most famous women in the world. He was a young manager still finding his feet.
There’s another layer here too. This was an interracial marriage in early 1970s America, and that came with real pressure from the outside world. It wasn’t a small thing at the time.
Robert Ellis Silberstein’s Life Inside Their Beverly Hills Home
So what did daily life look like for them? Honestly, a lot calmer than you’d expect.
They lived in a modern mansion in Beverly Hills that Diana had bought. It came with a full household staff — a chef, an English secretary, a housekeeper, a yardman, and a nanny.
Their summers had a rhythm. They played tennis on their own backyard court about three times a week. Winters meant ski trips to Aspen with friends, and those friends included Art Garfunkel and Jack Nicholson.
But here’s what surprises people. They barely went out. They hosted a party maybe once a year and rarely showed up at anyone else’s.
Most nights were simple. Dinner with their girls, then a movie at home. For a couple with that much fame, it was a remarkably normal way to live.
Robert had a clear view of his wife’s talent. He said Diana “would have missed a lot by not having children, but she’s too talented to be only a mother.” Diana agreed in her own way, saying she needed her career too and never saw herself as a supermom.
Meet Their Daughter
This is the part of Robert Ellis Silberstein’s story that most people don’t know. And it’s the part that says the most about him.
Go back to late 1970. Diana and Gordy had already split, but they reunited for one night. A few weeks into the pregnancy that followed, Diana married Robert.
Rhonda was born roughly nine months after that night. Robert was presumed to be her father. So he raised her as his own daughter, and she carried his surname.
Nobody knew otherwise at the time. Gordy told Barbara Walters that when Rhonda was born, they had no idea she was his. That truth came slowly.
As Rhonda grew, the resemblance became hard to miss. Gordy and Diana talked about it, and both came to the same conclusion. She was his.
Rhonda didn’t learn the truth until she was 13. Diana later spoke about it publicly on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1993.
His Two Daughters With Diana Ross
Robert and Diana had two biological daughters together, and both grew up to build careers of their own.
Tracee Ellis Ross was born on October 29, 1972. She studied theater at Brown University and worked as a model before acting took off.
Her breakout came with the series Girlfriends, and then she became a household name as Rainbow Johnson on Black-ish. She’s won a Golden Globe and picked up her first Emmy nomination at 43.
Chudney Ross was born in 1975 and went a different way. After graduating from Georgetown University, she chose to work behind the camera as a producer and production manager.
So both girls grew up with a world-famous mom and a private dad. That’s an unusual mix. Tracee has said her mother was extremely present — waking them for school, sitting for dinner, building a real home life.
Tracee also knew the family she was born into was unusual. She was at the White House multiple times as a child. Andy Warhol painted her. Michael Jackson was a family friend. But she’s said she never took any of it for granted.
The Divorce and What He Said After
The marriage ended on March 9, 1977. Six years, three daughters, and then it was over.
What happened next was messy. Robert gave an interview afterward that got genuinely bitter, and his target was Motown.
He said his wife belonged to that company. He described her as totally dominated by a man who, in his words, never read a book in his life. That man was Gordy.
Then came the strangest line of all. He said he couldn’t stand hearing people call Stevie Wonder a genius, and asked what happened to Freud.
It’s a rough quote. But read it again and you can hear what’s underneath it. This was a man who spent six years competing with a record label for his own wife’s attention, and he finally snapped.
After that outburst, though, he went quiet. He didn’t build a career out of trash-talking his famous ex. He stepped back, focused on his daughters, and let it go.
Dropping the Silberstein Name
At some point after the divorce, Robert made a choice. He dropped Silberstein and started going by Robert Ellis.
What happened next is the heart of this whole story. All three of his daughters dropped Silberstein too. Rhonda, Tracee, and Chudney all followed him.
Tracee went one step further. She changed her middle name from Joy to Ellis, so her full name became Tracee Ellis Ross.
Her reason is worth quoting. She told W Magazine that everyone knows she’s her mom’s daughter, but she’s very much her dad’s daughter too. She wanted his name in her name.
And then she explained the real reason. She wanted him to know, when her name hit a screen, that she was part of him too.
Think about what that means. Every time you see “Tracee Ellis Ross” in credits, that middle name is there on purpose. It’s a message to her father, in public, forever.
Tracee on Her Dad: The Funniest Man She Knows
Ask Tracee about her father and one word comes up first. Funny.
“My dad is hilarious,” she told Refinery29. She said she’s not sure she got it genetically, but she loves his perspective on life and his ability to laugh at himself and at everything else.
She calls him her “humor twin.” She’s also said her Jewish New York accent creeps out whenever they talk, which tells you how much of him rubbed off.
She’s shown that side publicly too. In 2017 she posted an Instagram video of the two of them at Whole Foods, laughing through turkey samples at the deli and juggling lemons. Her caption said it all: “So much like him! #IGetItFromMyDad.”
The best moment came in 2020. Accepting the Fashion Icon Award at the People’s Choice Awards, she thanked her mom for her sense of style and epic closet. Then she thanked her dad.
She thanked him for paying for the chestnut suede Ralph Lauren jeans she tricked him into buying when she was 14. For his impeccable style. And for being her humor twin. She credits both parents for her taste.
Robert Ellis Silberstein’s Life Today
So where does he stand now? Robert Ellis Silberstein turned 80 in January 2026.
He never remarried after Diana. That’s nearly fifty years on his own terms, which fits a man who never seemed interested in performing his life for anyone.
He hasn’t vanished completely, though. In June 2018 he appeared at the Greenwich International Film Festival in Connecticut. He attended the opening night screening and Q&A for the documentary The Price of Everything.
He’s also a grandfather now through his daughters. Rhonda has a son, Raif Kendrick. The family gathers, and photos show him smiling in them.
Interesting Facts About Robert Ellis Silberstein
- He met Diana Ross by pure chance in a Los Angeles men’s store — while she was there shopping for a gift for her ex, Berry Gordy.
- Nobody set them up. His own words on it: “No one introduced us.” Diana’s version was that she picked him up.
- The gift that turned them into a couple was a pair of red pajamas that matched his own.
- He was one year younger than Diana and a full 15 years younger than Berry Gordy.
- His first career wasn’t music at all — it was teaching. One fight with a school principal sent him to California instead.
- He managed some big names, including Billy Preston, Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones, Rufus, Meat Loaf, and Status Quo.
- He grew up wealthy. His family were Jewish garment manufacturers in New Jersey, so money was never a worry.
- Despite the fame around him, he and Diana rarely went out. Most nights were dinner with the girls and a movie at home.
Bottom Line
Robert Ellis Silberstein’s story is usually told in five words. Diana Ross’s ex-husband. That’s a shame, because the real story is better.
He walked away from teaching over one argument and built a music career from scratch. He met the biggest star alive by pure accident in a clothing store. He married her, and for six years he lived a life most people only imagine.
Then it ended, and he could have cashed in. He didn’t. Apart from one bitter interview, he stayed quiet and got on with raising his girls.
And he raised three of them, including one who wasn’t biologically his — a fact he didn’t know for years, and that never changed how he treated her.
The clearest measure of the man isn’t his career or his marriage. It’s that when he dropped his own surname, all three of his daughters dropped it with him. And one of them put his name in the middle of hers so the whole world would see it.
(FAQs)
How old is Robert Ellis Silberstein in 2026?
He was born on January 5, 1946, so he turned 80 in January 2026.
How long were Robert Ellis Silberstein and Diana Ross married?
Six years. They married on January 20, 1971, and divorced on March 9, 1977.
Is Robert Ellis Silberstein Tracee Ellis Ross’s real father?
Yes. Tracee and Chudney are his biological daughters with Diana Ross.
Is he Rhonda Ross Kendrick’s biological father?
No. Rhonda’s biological father is Berry Gordy. But Robert raised her as his own daughter and gave her his name, and nobody knew the truth until she was older.
Why did Tracee Ellis Ross change her middle name?
Her middle name was originally Joy. She changed it to Ellis after her father dropped Silberstein, because she wanted his name to appear on screen alongside hers.
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