Diane was a backing vocalist for the pop group Wham! in the early 1980s, but she left the group to work as a solo artist and also to join Paul Weller’s band, The Style Council. She was later married to Weller (but now divorced), and they have two children, Leah and Natt.
Following her departure from Wham!, Lee released her first solo single, “Selina Wow Wow”, in 1983 with considerable airplay . In 1984, she then worked with The Style Council and appeared on their debut album Café Bleu (released as My Ever Changing Moods in North America). Lee can be heard on the tracks “Headstart for Happiness,” “It Didn’t Matter,” “The Lodgers,” “Walls Come Tumbling Down,” and “Shout to the Top.”
In 1985, after the release of the second Style Council album Our Favourite Shop (which reached no.1) and a stint working with the band Animal Nightlife, Lee released another solo single; the self-penned ballad “See the Day”. The single became a huge UK hit and peaked at no.3 in December 1985, selling a quarter of a million copies in the UK alone and earning Lee a Silver disc. Twenty years later, the song was covered by Girls Aloud, their version peaking at no.9 on the UK Singles Chart in December 2005.
Lee’s follow-up singles, were a cover of Judie Tzuke’s “Come Hell Or Waters High” and “Hold On” failed to make the UK Top 40.
Throughout the rest of the 1980s, Lee continued to work with The Style Council on their albums The Cost of Loving (1987) and Confessions of a Pop Group (1988).
Between 1989 and 1991, Lee teamed up with Robert Howard of The Blow Monkeys to form ‘Slam Slam’. They achieved a number of minor UK club hits including “Move (Dance All Night)” and “Free Your Feelings”, the latter produced by Young Disciples. In 1993, Lee later collaborated with Gang Starr frontman, Guru, on a single from his solo project Jazzmatazz called “No Time to Play” on which also featured Ronny Jordan. Later in the 1990s, Lee released two further solo albums; Things Will Be Sweeter (1994) and Smiles (1998).
In 2006, Lee had a part as a pop star in the comedy film Rabbit Fever. In September 2007, Lee performed her hit “See The Day” on ITV1’s Loose Women show.
In 2008, Lee had a part singing in the British short movie, The Town That Boars Me, which also starred her son Natt Weller.
On 31 May 2009, Lee joined ex-Level 42 musicians, Mike Lindup and Phil Gould, to play a comeback gig with a collective called ‘Favoured Nations’.