06/04/2026
Diana Ross Honeymooned on a Private French Polynesian Island — Then Lost It in Her Divorce...
In 1985, Motown icon Diana Ross married Norwegian shipping billionaire Arne Næss Jr., and the two spent their honeymoon on his private island of Taino, near Tahiti in French Polynesia. By all accounts, the marriage was the real thing. Ross told Oprah Winfrey in a 2011 interview that Næss was the "love of my life" and called their years together "a wonderful, wonderful love affair."
Næss was not your typical businessman. He climbed Mount Everest in 1985, built a fortune in shipping and real estate, and lived a life that matched Ross's own outsized energy. The couple had two sons — Ross Næss and Evan Ross — and divided their time between Europe and the United States throughout the late 1980s and 1990s.
Their separation came quietly. Næss told a journalist in 1999 that the two were apart, and Ross later said she found out through her publicist. The divorce was finalised in 2000, and the Taino island — which had belonged to Næss — remained with him as part of that split. Næss passed away in January 2004 during a mountain climbing accident near Cape Town, South Africa, leaving behind a complicated legacy and a love story Ross never fully stopped talking about.
A honeymoon island in French Polynesia, a Motown legend, and a Norwegian mountaineer-billionaire — and it still ended in heartbreak. Does money and adventure ever actually guarantee the marriage lasts?