Lionel Richie’s late parents, Lionel Brockman Richie Sr. and Alberta R. Foster, taught him so much about life.
They welcomed Richie on June 20, 1949, and raised him on the campus grounds of the historically Black college, the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), in Tuskegee, Ala., per the Los Angeles Times. When Richie was growing up, the campus was a safe haven for Black people in Alabama during the period of racial segregation in the South enforced by Jim Crow laws.
As a child, he was surrounded by professionals involved with the institute who were PhDs, lawyers and doctors, so his parents were skeptical about his choice to make music for a living, the singer recalled to CBS News in May 2022.
Despite the doubt, Richie became a Grammy award-winning songwriter and the lead singer of the popular funk and soul group the Commodores — and his father and mother even inspired a few of his songs, including “Three Times a Lady” and “Goodbye.”
Richie always had a special relationship with his late folks. Speaking to PEOPLE in February 2022, the vocalist reflected on why he admired his dad.
“My biggest hero is my father because I didn’t realize what he was going through,” he shared. “He didn’t make any effort to tell us what they were going through as Black men and women in America and in the South.”
Here’s everything to know about Lionel Richie’s parents, Lionel Brockman Richie Sr. and Alberta R. Foster.
They lived on the Tuskegee Institute’s campus
Richie and his parents lived in a house on the Tuskegee Institute campus after having familial ties. One of Richie’s grandfathers worked with Booker T. Washington, the college’s founder, per the Alabama Music Hall of Fame website, and the artist eventually enrolled as a student there.
Speaking with the Los Angeles Times in February 2022, Richie described the campus as a “bubble” in the midst of a segregated post-World War II Alabama. His parents’ home was by the university’s gate, and Richie later inherited the property.
“I’ve been putting [in] money and fixing it up since I left in 1968,” he told the newspaper. “I probably put more money in that piece of property than any I have in the whole world.”
Richie’s father worked for the U.S. Army and his mother was an educator
According to the Alabama Music Hall of Fame’s site, when Richie was growing up in Tuskegee, his mother was a teacher and a school principal, while his father was a systems analyst for the U.S. Army. His dad notably served as a Tuskegee Airman, per ABC News.
During a March 2012 interview with Esquire, Richie recalled growing up around the Tuskegee Airmen — the nation’s first group of Black military pilots who fought in World War II.
“The Tuskegee Airmen were on the campus,” he told the outlet. “I was raised by the Tuskegee Airmen. The entire mantra to my life was ‘Failure is not an option.’ They’d look you straight in the face. ‘Failure is not an option, young man.’ ”
They tried to protect Richie from racism
In the era of Jim Crow segregation laws and lynching in Alabama, Richie’s parents tried to keep him safe on the campus grounds.
“We had no idea that the Klan was marching through town because they put us to bed early,” Richie told the Los Angeles Times, referencing his sister Deborah.
Despite their efforts, when the singer was just 6, he experienced racism while traveling to Montgomery, Ala., with his father.
“I went over to the water fountain … didn’t see the sign above it, and just drank the water,” he remembered. “These guys were saying something to my dad. I kept thinking, ‘These guys better be cool because my dad’s gonna kick their ass.’ ”
But his father just kept walking and got in the car. When Richie brought up the incident years later, his father explained, “I had a choice that day of either being a man, or your father. If I turned around acting like a man, they’d have probably shot and killed me.”
They were nervous about Richie pursuing music
During his conversation with CBS News in May 2022, he joked that forming a funk band while growing up on the Tuskegee Institute campus was a “disastrous” choice.
When he told his family about how the Commodores would be “the Black Beatles,” they weren’t convinced.
“Mom and Dad almost had a nervous breakdown,” Richie recalled. “And then from the community, you could see everyone passing going, ‘Oh, there’s poor Lionel. Poor misguided Lionel!’ ”
In the end, his musical ambitions worked out. The Commodores signed a record deal with Atlantic Records in 1968 and later supported The Jackson 5.
Richie’s father and mother inspired “Three Times a Lady”
Richie wrote the Commodores’ 1978 breakthrough hit, “Three Times a Lady,” after hearing his father make a speech to honor his mother.
“One day he decided to get up and make a toast to my mom, about how he felt about her,” the singer told Billboard in June 2016, noting the toast was “just out of the blue.”
When Richie was confused, his father explained, “She’s a great lady, she’s a great mother and she’s a great friend.”
The sweet moment stuck with Richie, and he turned it into a waltz, which then became the band’s first “smash record.” At the time, he told the toast story during an appearance on The Tonight Show Hosted by Johnny Carson.
Richie told Billboard that his father called him after that appearance and said, “Son, I saw your interview with Johnny Carson. I was very touched by the fact that you said you can never repay your parents for all they’ve done for you. But let me ask you a question, Would you try? Would you try to repay your parents as much as possible?”
Richie laughed and noted he’s “spent the rest of [his] life trying to pay him off for ‘Three Times a Lady.’ ”
Richie coped with his parents’ death through music
When Richie’s father became ill, the singer took time off to take care of him, and sadly, he died in 1990.
“He had a great, full life,” Richie shared with ABC News in June 1996. “Fortunately, he didn’t die suddenly.”
Acknowledging that taking time off delayed new music, the musician emphasized, “If someone said, ‘Spend time with your father or your new album,’ there’s just no contest.”
Decades later, during an April 2018 interview with ITV’s Lorraine, Richie reflected on struggling with his dad’s death.
“My father was ill, and I went through a very — I won’t say a depression, a massive depression, because, you know, my dad was my hero,” Richie shared.
The loss forced him to reflect on his life and fame. “I became so nostalgic,” he explained to CBS News. “I was famous, recognized around the world, but I missed all the Christmases and the New Years.”
After losing his father, mother and grandmother, Adelaide Mary Brown, Richie wrote a song about them titled “Goodbye.”
“It was probably one of the hardest songs I’ve ever had to write in my life,” he explained to Billboard. “It was about saying goodbye. You’ve had a great life, you share the memories, you appreciate all of the joys … you’re basically saying goodbye to a person you spent a lifetime with.”
Although Richie was “excited” about the song at the time, he noted that it was never released as a single. The late country star Kenny Rogers performed it as well.
Richie shared a special relationship with his father
When the musician spoke to Esquire in March 2012, he shared a touching story about what he learned from his father.
“When I was a boy, about to leave my dad with my friends, my dad would go, ‘Hey boy, where you goin? You forgot something,’ ” Richie recalled. When he would respond, “Oh, Jesus Christ, Dad. I’ve got to kiss you in front of my guys?” his dad would confirm, “Yeah, you do.”
After one of these exchanges, a friend of Richie’s shared with him, “I’m not allowed to kiss my dad. My dad only wants me to shake hands.” That’s the moment Richie understood how “lucky” he was to have such a close relationship with his father.
Amid Richie’s initial success, his father spoke with him about fame and expressed his concerns. “I’m worried about you,” he said to Richie. “If you lost it all tomorrow, would you still be the guy you are today? You haven’t been tested, son. And I’m worried about that.”
Although Richie didn’t understand what he meant at the time, the singer was later “tested” when he lost his dad, divorced his first wife, Brenda Harvey, and suffered a throat illness. “That’s when the strength of that moment with my dad came to me,” Richie recounted. “I’m going to find out who I am.”
In a June 2020 tribute post on Facebook, Richie shared a photo of his father, wished him a happy Father’s Day and wrote, “You are forever in my heart.”
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