Lionel and Nicole Richie first crossed paths at a Prince concert in the 1980s. Speaking with HuffPost, the “All Night Long” crooner shared that he first saw Nicole on stage with the “Purple Rain” singer fiddling with the tambourine. While they got to interact briefly after the show, he “never thought about it again.” He later discovered that she was the daughter of his friends, musician Peter Escovedo and assistant Karen Moss. He then got wind of the fact that the two were having problems, so he and his ex-wife, Brenda, offered to look after Nicole. “I think we decided that … What we’ll do to kind of give you some stability was we’ll be like legal guardians, but nothing more,” he said.
Initially, the Richies’ role was akin to long-term babysitters, hosting Nicole for brief stays. “Whenever I wanted to go someplace, they would put me on an airplane that day,” Nicole shared with Vanity Fair. The arrangement led to the family enrolling her in a private school in Los Angeles, where she met who would be her BFF, Paris Hilton.
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The formal adoption of Nicole was completed when she was nine. To this day, Lionel looks back at their decision with fondness, telling People that she was a blessing in his life. “Nicole was actually a godsend. She was a little girl who needed a shot,” he said. “She was used to people coming and going. She looked at me and I’d say, ‘I’m not going anywhere.'”
