Stephanie Mills - Personal Life

Personal Life

Stephanie is the fifth of six children. She was born and raised predominantly in Brooklyn, New York. Mills claims that she was romantically involved with Michael Jackson for a short period of time while she was doing The Wiz.

In 1992 Ebony magazine reported that Mills had been married in the 1970s for a brief period, to Jeffrey Daniel from the soul group Shalamar and again in the mid 1980s to Dino Meminger but that both marriages had ended in less than two years. "I also wanted to know why my relationships never made it to two years. I knew it was me," says Mills. "You can't blame it on another person. That's where a lot of women go wrong... carrying over from a bad relationship to a new relationship."

Mills married a third time to Charlotte, North Carolina, radio program manager, Michael Saunders, in 1993 in a wedding ceremony performed by Minister Louis Farrakhan. The couple divorced sometime later.

In an interview with Soul Music in 2002, Mills said that she had a son, Farad. Mills would not comment on the identity of Farad’s father, other than to say that she is not married, and that her ex-husband Michael Saunders, is not Farad's father. Mills added that giving birth “was the best thing I’ve ever done. It was amazingly wonderful and I wish I had started earlier. I might have had two or three before, but I had some problems before in being able to have children. But things work out when they’re supposed to... now I’m a single working parent and loving it!"

In an interview with Windy City Times in 2010, Mills said that she presently makes her home in Charlotte, North Carolina and that her son, Farad has Down's Syndrome. "The Shriners are celebrating their 88th anniversary, and they have 22 hospitals nationwide," says Mills. "And what I love is even my son — I have a child with Down's syndrome — can get access to the best spinal-cord doctors in the country."