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.
It came at a Prince concert in 1984, when the Grammy winner and first wife Brenda Harvey were bowled over 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, 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, 32, and Sofia Richie, 28, his kids with second wife Diane Alexander—was always easy like Sunday morning.