“All of a sudden, I found something I could actually fall in love with that was never going to leave me.” “Everything up to that point was about songwriting in the business and touring,” he told her in the HuffPost interview. We all lost her.” Lionel says Nicole “softened” his heartįor a successful musician, Lionel had been laser-focused on his career. If Nikki stayed where she was, living rent-free, then Karen could earn enough for their future without disrupting her child’s life.”īut she adds that when the adoption happened, it wasn’t that easy: “The heartbreaking part is that once Nicole Escovedo legally became Nicole Richie, it felt like we lost her. said in her 2014 book The Book of My Own Drum, “As a single working mom, Karen was extremely grateful, but very torn. He’s just going away to work,’ I think you felt safer,” he said to her. “And as soon as you realized-I think over time-‘Okay, he’s not leaving me. Nicole remembers the conversation well, too, and how insistent he was that she understood what he was saying, especially since he’d often be gone for weeks or months at a time for work. “I said, ‘No no, listen, I’m never going to leave you.’” I said, ‘I’m never, ever going to leave you.’”īut she doubted his words, as Lionel remembered “this look” on her face. “You’ve been handed around to every relative in the family. “I remember you had abandonment issues for obvious reasons,” he continued. ![]() It took time for Lionel to gain Nicole’s trustĮstablishing trust with Nicole was a challenge, especially because she hadn’t had much stability in her young life. “I can remember to this day, that little head, sitting up in the little judge’s chamber,” Lionel said to Nicole on “Talk to Me,” realizing that the young girl didn’t quite understand what was happening. Nicole was 9 years old when the adoption came through. You are going to make everyone in your family wish they actually had a chance to get you back,’ and that’s when I said, ‘Let’s adopt her.’” “So I said, ‘Okay, here is what we are going to do: You’re going to make everyone wish that they had adopted you. ![]() “So it took about maybe a year for me to just fall in love, and she was a little button, and of course, by that time I was Dad,” he told Morgan. Nicole Richie, Lionel Richie, and Brenda Harvey Richie in September 1985 Getty ImagesĪs Lionel’s career skyrocketed during this period with songs like “All Night Long (All Night),” “Hello,” and “Say You, Say Me,” the Grammy-winning album Can’t Slow Down, and the charity hit “We Are the World,” he also began to adore his role as a father. Lionel and Brenda officially adopted Nicole when she was 9 “The situation with you wasn’t getting any better,” Lionel said to Nicole for HuffPost, explaining that he and then-wife Brenda Harvey started out as legal guardians. At the time, it made sense since Lionel knew Sheila and the family.īefore they knew it, about two years had passed. “They were having difficulties with their relationship,” Lionel told Piers Morgan in a 2015 interview. On top of the logistics, the situation wasn’t going quite well. “I don’t know how we got into the conversation, ‘Well, why don’t you just kind of keep the kid here?’” he continued in the interview that was conducted by Nicole for the outlet’s “Talk to Me” series. “We a little worried that the little kid can’t go on tour because a 2-year-old needs to be stationary,” Lionel told HuffPost, adding about her parents, “ They can’t keep going on the road.” Nicole’s birth parents were “having difficulties with their relationship”Ī few weeks later, Lionel saw Nicole again and learned about the challenges she was facing. ![]() Little did he realize at the time that she would soon become Nicole Richie and be calling him dad. After the show, Lionel briefly played with the toddler but “never thought about it again,” Lionel told HuffPost of his first meeting with Nicole. Lionel was immediately drawn to her and learned she was the daughter of musician Peter Escovedo and assistant Karen Moss, who worked for Peter’s sister, singer Sheila Escovedo, better known as Sheila E. The 2-year-old was playing the tambourine on stage alongside the “Purple Rain” singer. Lionel Richie was at a Prince concert in 1983 in Los Angeles when he first saw Nicole Camille Escovedo.
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