He did call her his "Mother-Lover-Friend".
It was unrequited love no different than when I was a young jit crushing on grown women, some of whom I still liked even after growing up.
MJ did NOT hit that.
And if these rumors were as prevalent as yall would like to think in your lil echo chambers, then when MJ was being accused of stuff like child molestation and not actually liking women, when fans went to defend him, they would have said "but he was in a relationship with Diana Ross."
But nobody ever said that anywhere cause everybody knew it wasn't true. And yall are inventing fake memories of a prevalent rumor. For what? I dunno. But ppl like to fit in with the crowd and pretend that "everybody knew something" that everybody didn't really know. This is one of those situations.