How Lionel Richie Has Already Formed a Strong Bond With Sofia Richie’s Baby Boy Henry
For Lionel Richie, there came a time when he heeded a certain call.
The call came at a Prince concert in 1984, when the Grammy winner and first wife Brenda Harvey were struck by a 3-year-old girl playing tambourine onstage, seemingly by herself.
The child was Nicole Camille Escovedo, daughter of musicians Pete Escovedo and his ex-girlfriend Karen Moss. And both Lionel and Barbara felt Nikki, as everyone called her, would be better off living with them while her parents figured themselves out.
“Clearly, they loved her and were trying hard,” Lionel recalled in his 2025 memoir Truly, “but it was an uncertain time.”
He and Brenda became Nikki’s foster parents, then her legal guardians and, when she was 9, her adoptive parents. And with that, the child who became Nicole Richie taught Lionel what endless love really meant.
Which didn’t mean being once, twice, three times a dad—to Nicole, 44, and then Miles Richie, 31, and Sofia Richie, 27, his kids with second wife Diane Alexander—was always easy like Sunday morning.
Asked if he’d ever do a reality show with his daughters, Lionel—whose ninth season as a judge on American Idol concludes with the May 11 finale—told E! News that he prefers a simpler life for himself these days.
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“Let me say this to you: Living with my kids has been a reality series that I’ve been trying to forget for a long time,” he quipped in 2023. “So, to bring it to the public right now would be something called post-traumatic syndrome.”
His now grown children may be “used to this thing called ‘all your business, every day out in the street,’” the “Hello” singer explained. “I’m a little bit more reserved, so I’ll let them do their thing and Papa Richard can kinda go home and enjoy the fireplace.”
Along with Lisa Parigi, his partner of 12-plus years, the 76-year-old’s four grandchildren are the ones who make it an even brighter day, Lionel telling USA Today recently that “pride keeps popping out of my chest.”
“Everyone is happy,” he said, “and that’s the part I love the most. Just watching everyone blossom.”
Here’s everything to know about Lionel’s blossoming blended family:
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Lionel Richie
Lionel Brockman Richie Jr. was born June 20, 1949, in Tuskegee, Ala.
He made hit after hit as lead singer of the Commodores before embarking on a wildly successful solo career. He’s won four Grammys, including Album of the Year for 1983’s Can’t Slow Down and Song of the Year in 1986 for “We Are the World,” as well as a Best Original Song Oscar for “Say You, Say Me” from the 1985 film White Nights.
Lionel has been a judge on American Idol since 2018.
Twice married and divorced, the father of three made his public debut with partner Lisa Parigi in 2014.
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First Wife Brenda Harvey
Lionel Richie was in his senior year at Tuskegee University when he met freshman baton twirler Brenda Harvey.
He dropped out of school in 1971 to tour with the Commodores “before we settled into any kind of college sweetheart groove,” Lionel wrote in his 2025 memoir Truly, but they “got to know each other in installments from the road.”
The couple eloped to Auburn, Ala., and tied the knot Oct. 18, 1975.
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Daughter Nicole Richie
Nicole was born Sept. 21, 1981, to musician Pete Escovedo and his ex-girlfriend Karen Moss.
Lionel and Brenda became Nicole’s foster parents in 1984 after they saw the 3-year-old playing tambourine onstage at a Prince show—longtime Prince collaborator Sheila E. is Pete’s sister—and determined she needed a more stable home environment.
They formally adopted Nicole when she was 9.
“Even as issues at home became more complicated for me and Brenda,” Lionel wrote in Truly, “the one thing that never changed was how devoted we both were to Nicole.”
He and Brenda were separated by 1988 and finalized their divorce in 1993.
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As Lionel put it in a 2015 interview with Piers Morgan, Nicole “got into a lot of trouble here and there.”
But the pioneering star of The Simple Life left her scandalous days in the dust.
“With my family and close friends, I am owning my past, relishing in the absurdity, slightly flinching at my own naïveté, and giving myself props for the unabashed bravery that streaked through my youth,” she wrote in a 2016 Lenny Letter essay. “But not trying to hide from it, not trying to change it, just allowing it to help propel me forward.”
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Nicole Richie’s Husband Joel Madden
Nicole met Joel at a party in December 2006 and “we were partners from day one,” she told Oprah Winfrey.
She got pregnant a few months later and, “from the second we found out we were going to be parents together,” Nicole recalled, they vowed to “go through this together as a team.'”
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She and Joel welcomed daughter Harlow Kate Madden—namesake of Nicole’s House of Harlow lifestyle brand—on Jan. 12, 2008, and son Sparrow James Midnight Madden on Sept. 9, 2009.
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The couple got married on Dec. 11, 2010, at Lionel’s Beverly Hills home, with the groom’s twin and Good Charlotte bandmate Benji Madden serving as best man.
On The Drew Barrymore Show in 2023, Joel called Nicole “the greatest partner.”
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Diane Alexander
Lionel recalled in Truly first laying eyes on the dancer when they were in the 1984 Summer Olympics Closing Ceremony in Los Angeles. But they didn’t really meet until months later, when she pulled up next to him at a traffic light in West Hollywood and he invited her to watch a studio session.
The Grammy winner wrote that he didn’t do anything to “jeopardize” his marriage and home life “for a while,” but then Diane was in the 1986 video for “Dancing on the Ceiling” and he and Barbara were separated by 1988.
Lionel married Diane on Dec. 21, 1995. They divorced in 2004, but the singer wrote that he’ll “forever give it up” to his ex-wives “for being strong, loving, and devoted moms.”
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Miles Richie
Diane and Lionel welcomed Miles Brockman Richie on May 27, 1994.
Miles has kept a lower profile than his sisters, but he’s an artist who made his modeling debut in 2018, walking in Phillipp Plein’s show during New York Fashion Week.
“I prefer that I have to work for what I do,” he told Essence in 2020 of not wanting to bank on his famous name. “If life is just handed to you, then you don’t learn who you truly are as a person.”
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Sofia Richie Grainge
Sofia was born to Lionel and Diane on Aug. 24, 1998.
“Nicole joined us as the proud, protective big sister,” Lionel wrote in Truly, and she, Miles and Sofia “were the lights of my life and they are to this day.”
Sofia started modeling at 14 and followed her big sis into fashion design, collaborating with Nicole’s brand on the Sofia Richie x House of Harlow 1960 collection in 2021.
And as a child of the music industry, Sofia couldn’t help falling in love with a record exec. She married Atlantic Music Group CEO Elliot Grainge on April 22, 2023, in the south of France.
They welcomed daughter Eloise Samantha Grainge on May 20, 2024, and son Henry Cecil Grainge on March 18, 2026.
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