The gorgeous 1986 song Lionel Richie wrote about his daughter Nicole

22 May 2024, 17:24

After fostering Nicole as his first child, Lionel Richie couldn't contain his emotion, so poured it into a beautiful song about his beloved daughter. Picture: Getty

By Thomas Edward

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It was a love that changed his life.

Up until the moment he first set eyes on Nicole, all that concerned Lionel Richie was writing global hits and touring the world to his many millions of fans.

But after an unlikely meeting at a Prince concert, the course of Lionel's life would alter indefinitely.

When Nicole Richie was just two years old, she was playing tambourine on stage with Prince, and little did Lionel know that she'd become his future daughter.

"The discovery was not the show for Prince," Richie told HuffPost in 2020. "The discovery was: there’s a 2-year-old on stage with Prince playing a tambourine."

Telling Nicole in the same interview, Lionel said: "I think you changed my life a great deal in terms of softening my heart, because everything up to that point was about songwriting and the business and touring."

"All of a sudden I found something that I could actually fall in love with that was never going to leave me. How about that?"

After fostering Nicole as his first child, Lionel couldn't contain his emotion, so poured it into a beautiful song about his daughter: 'Ballerina Girl'.

"All of a sudden I found something that I could actually fall in love with that was never going to leave me." (Photo by Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images). Picture: Getty

By the time Lionel was writing his phenomenal 1986 album, Dancing On The Ceiling, he was already an international sensation who could seemingly do no wrong.

So where better to include a song that details the relationship that changed the man he's evolved into?

Richie wrote 'Ballerina Girl' for Nicole after taking her to ballet classes at the age of four and watching her dance.

By this time, she was not officially his daughter as he'd yet to adopt Nicole, though she was living with Lionel and his then-wife Brenda Harvey.

Lionel Richie - Ballerina Girl

Lionel was friends with Nicole's biological parents, musician Peter Escovedo (Sheila E's brother) and assistant Karen Moss, who expressed their financial difficulties and that their "family situation was falling apart."

Facing their inability to give Nicole the life she deserved, the 'Hello' singer offered to help any way he could, which resulted in him and Brenda caring for Nicole as a child.

After years of living together, they eventually adopted Nicole in 1990 when she was nine.

'Ballerina Girl' was a beautiful tribute to the experience and newfound love that changed Lionel, one that proved to be a great success too.

The single reached the top ten of the US Billboard charts - his final song to do so - and was later covered by the likes of Luther Vandross and Steve Winwood.

"Nicole was actually a godsend." (Photo by River Callaway/Variety via Getty Images). Picture: Getty

The American Idol host later gushed about the impact adopting Nicole had on him, by shifting his priorities in life.

"Nicole was actually a godsend. She was a little girl who needed a shot," Richie told People magazine in 2022.

"She was used to people coming and going. She looked at me and I'd say, 'I'm not going anywhere'."

His daughter repaid the trust and loyalty Lionel showed her, especially after the messy divorce he went through with Brenda only a few years after they'd adopted Nicole.

It was reported that Brenda "caught" Lionel with dancer Diane Alexander - who he'd later marry and have a further two children with - which resulted in their divorce in 1993.

But it was Nicole and the love they reciprocated that kept him grounded and on the straight-and-narrow throughout the difficult period in his life.

"Brenda and I went through a very interesting time," Richie told People. “We didn’t agree on a lot of things, but we did agree on [Nicole]."