Diana Ross – I’m Coming Out (Live from Central Park 83)

The Song Born In A Drag Club Bathroom That Terrified Diana Ross

Diana Ross released “I’m Coming Out” on August 22, 1980, as the second single from her self-titled album Diana. It climbed to number five on the US Billboard Hot 100 and hit number one on the Billboard Hot Disco Singles chart—remarkable for a song its own artist briefly wanted destroyed. The story of how it got made, nearly got buried, and then became one of the most layered pop records of its era is unlike almost anything else in the Motown catalogue.

The single peaked at number 13 in the UK, number seven in France, and number eight in Ireland, cementing Ross’s commercial comeback after a string of underperforming albums. Diana became her biggest-selling solo album ever, with the chart-topping “Upside Down” leading the charge. But while “Upside Down” was the number one smash, “I’m Coming Out” quietly became the more enduring record—the one she has opened every live performance with ever since 1980.

The idea was born in a bathroom. Nile Rodgers of Chic was at The Gilded Grape, a transgender night club in New York, when he noticed six or seven drag queens all dressed as Diana Ross. He stepped outside and called his partner Bernard Edwards from a payphone. “Diana Ross is revered by the gay community,” Rodgers told him. “If we wrote a song called ‘I’m Coming Out’ for Diana Ross it would have the same power as James Brown’s ‘Say It Loud—I’m Black and I’m Proud.'” They wrote it the following morning. What Rodgers didn’t mention to Ross was that the song had been deliberately crafted for her gay following. The lyrics also carried a second meaning—Ross was literally leaving Motown and coming out from under Berry Gordy’s influence after nearly two decades.

Ross loved the record right up until DJ Frankie Crocker explained what “coming out” meant in a gay context. She allegedly ran back to the studio in tears, demanding to know why Rodgers and Edwards were trying to ruin her career. Rodgers, in a moment of inspired damage control, later admitted: “It was the only time I’ve ever lied to an artist. I said: ‘What are you talking about? That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard in my life!'” He convinced her to use it as the opener for her live shows. She has done so at every concert since. The recording sessions at the Power Station in New York also featured an unlikely element—a jazz trombone solo by producer Meco Monardo, which Rodgers insisted on precisely because, as he put it, “there are no hit records with jazz trombone solos.” When Ross later took the master tapes to Detroit for remixing without consulting Rodgers and Edwards, the dispute was severe enough that no musicians were credited on the album cover.

Diana arrived at a precarious moment—post-Disco Demolition Night, when radio was actively burying anything that sounded like disco. Ross had cold feet about the album’s sound, eventually having Motown engineer Russ Terrana speed up the tracks and push her vocals higher. Rodgers and Edwards were furious. In 2003, their original Chic mixes were finally released as a bonus disc, revealing a fuller, looser album that many now consider the superior version.

The song’s reach across genres is remarkable. The Notorious B.I.G. and Puff Daddy built “Mo Money Mo Problems” around it in 1997, sending it to number one—a posthumous chart-topper that gave Rodgers and Edwards co-writer credits seventeen years after the original. Ariana Grande sampled it for “Break Your Heart Right Back” in 2014. Billboard ranked it number three on their 100 Greatest LGBTQ+ Anthems of All Time in 2025, and Rolling Stone placed it at number 385 on their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

For a song that was nearly killed by its own artist, “I’m Coming Out” has had the last word at every turn. It outlasted the disco backlash, outlasted Motown’s remix, and outlasted the industry’s attempt to write off Diana Ross as a relic. Rodgers once described the song’s intro—a minute-long fanfare before the groove kicks in—as a statement of intent: “She’s the queen. It’s a fanfare.” Forty-five years on, nobody’s arguing.