Velma Jean Terrell (born November 26, 1945) is an American R&B and jazz singer. She replaced Diana Ross as the lead singer of The Supremes in 1970.

Terrell was born on November 26, 1945 in Belzoni, Mississippi, United States. She was born into a family of ten children, whose father was a Mississippi sharecropper who during Terrell's childhood moved the family north to Chicago when he found employment in the factories.

She is the sister of the former WBA heavyweight boxing champion Ernie Terrell, who fought Muhammad Ali.

Before her career with the Supremes, she sang with her brother Ernie in the group Ernie Terrell and the Knockouts (sometimes the Heavyweights).

Motown president Berry Gordy discovered Terrell in 1969 in Miami, where she was performing with her brother at a club. Looking for a replacement for Diana Ross, who was leaving the group she had fronted during most of the 1960s, the Supremes, for a solo career, Gordy first signed Terrell to Motown as a solo artist, but decided to join her with the Supremes as Ross's replacement alongside Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong, as announced in 1969.

After Ross's farewell show with the group at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas on January 14, 1970, Terrell joined the group on stage to be presented to the press and public. After this introduction, according to Mary Wilson, Gordy changed his mind about Terrell leading the group and suggested replacing her with Syreeta Wright. Gordy said:

I don't like Jean. I want to replace her with Syreeta.

Wilson vetoed this move, instead wanting to continue the group with Terrell.