William Robinsion Jr., popularly known as Smokey Robinson, is an American singer and songwriter and former record executive. He was the founder and frontman of the vocal group, The Miracles, leading the group from 1955. In 1972, he retired from the group to focus more on his vice presidency at Motown Records but after its sale in 1988, Robinson left the company. In 1973, Robinson returned to the music industry as a solo artist.
In 1987, Robinson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and in 2016, he won the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for his lifetime contribution to popular music.
Smokey Robinson’s Net Worth is Estimated at $150 Million
According to CelebrityNetWorth, Robinson has a net worth of $150 Million, credited with pioneering the distinct “Motown sound” that became popular from the 1950s until the 1970s. Smokey was an integral part of the Miracles, a vocal group that saw great success throughout the Motown period.
Robinson’s interest in music began after listening to songs by Nolan Strong & the Diablos and Billy Ward and his Dominoes as a child. He had also listed Detroit native, Barrett Strong as a strong vocal influence in his life. In 1955, he formed “the Five Chimes” with his childhood friend, Ronald White, and classmate, Pete Moore, and in 1957, Bobby Rogers was included and the group was renamed as “the Matadors”. After adding two more members, the group began touring in Detroit and they changed their name to “the Miracles”.
Smokey Robinson Mispronounces “Chanukah”
Robinson managed to go 80 years without knowing that Hanukkah can also be spelled “Chanukah”. After mispronouncing the Jewish holiday in a video greeting commissioned for his fan, Robinson is getting an opportunity to redeem himself from this goof-up.
One Twitter user and long-time fan of Robinson, Jeff Jacobson, paid him $399 to record a Hanukkah greeting for his mother. According to the fan’s tweet, he reached out to Robinson on Cameo, a video service that connects fans with celebrities for these types of short, paid, recorded greetings. Jacobson revealed in his tweet that his mother and Robinson had grown up in the same street in Detroit.
But the video did not go as planned and left his fans on Twitter in splits. Jacobson tweeted,
“My mom grew up on the same street as Smokey Robinson in Detroit. So for Chanukah, I wanted to reunite them via @Cameo. But the video takes a strange twist.”
The video featured Robinson greeting Jacobson’s mother and wishing her for Hanukkah. However, he kept saying “Chanukah”, pronounced as cha-new-kah, instead of “Hanukkah”. The video has since been retweeted more than 30,000 times and has over 43,000 likes. Robinson then tweeted, correcting his mistake,
“Hey @jeffjacobson — in the spirit of 2020, I’m gonna need a do-over! Please DM your mother’s phone number so we can try this again”.
More On Smokey Robinson’s Life
In 1959, Robinson married a fellow the Miracles member, Claudette Rogers and the couple had two children. After agreeing to have fathered a child with a woman other than his wife, Robinson filed for legal separation and later, for divorce. In 1986, he and his wife had legally divorced. In 2002, Robinson married Frances Gladney and the couple own a home in Pittsburgh and use it as a winery.
