Lionel Richie Net Worth: $200M

Who is Lionel Richie

Lionel Richie is an American musician who has a net worth of $200M.

Lionel is an extremely talented singer and producer who first rose to fame in the group The Commodores.

He also went on to forge an extremely successful solo career.

The Early Years

Lionel Richie Jr was on June 20, 1949, in Tuskegee, Alabama.

He grew up on the campus of the Tuskegee Institute and graduated from Joliet Township High School in Joliet, Illinois where he was their star tennis player.

He went to the Tuskegee Institute on a tennis scholarship and graduated with a B.S. in Economics.

In the 1960s Richie created a number of R&B groups while he was a student at Tuskegee.

Lionel briefly attended graduate school at Auburn University.

Career

In 1968, Lionel joined The Commodores as a singer and saxophone player. They first signed a record recording deal in 1968 with Atlantic Records but later moved to Motown Records.

The Commodores became a very popular R&B group with their hit songs Brick House, Machine Gun, and Three Times a Lady.

By the 1970s, Lionel began writing songs for other musicians. He wrote Lady for Kenny Rogers which later became a number one hit in 1980.

In 1981, Lionel performed a duet with Diana Ross for the theme song of the film Endless Love.

It was one of Motown’s biggest hits and was also nominated for an Academy Award.

It was this success that inspired Richie to launch his own solo career.

In 1982 Richie released his debut solo album Lionel Richie and had three hit singles; Truly, You Are, and My Love.

The album made it to number three on the charts and sold more than four million copies worldwide.

In 1983 he released Can’t Slow Down which went on to sell more than double as many copies as his debut album.

Can’t Slow Down also won two Grammy’s, including Album of the Year.

The lead single from the album was All Night Long, which Lionel Richie went on to perform at the closing ceremony of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

Richie continued to have success throughout the 1980s with a number of Top 10 hits including Hello, Stuck on You, and Running with the Night.

In 1985 Richie wrote and performed Say You, Say Me for the film White Nights.

The song went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song and stayed at number one in the US for four weeks.

Lionel Richie also collaborated with Michael Jackson on We Are The World.

In 1986 he released the album Dancing on the Ceiling which included five Top 20 songs including Say You, Say Me, Dancing on the Ceiling, Love Will Conquer All, Ballerina Girl, and Sela.

In the 1990s Lionel Richie failed to replicate the success of his first three albums and since 2004 has produced six Top 40 singles in the UK.

In 2009 he released the album Just Go and in 2012 released his tenth album Tuskegee.

In recent years, Lionel Richie has had huge success and become very popular in a number of Arab nations.

He has performed in Morocco, UAE, Egypt and Libya.

Richie has won four Grammy Awards in his career, including Song of the Year in 1985 for We Are the World, Album of the Year in 1984 for Can’t Slow Down, Producer of the Year (Non-Classical) in 1984, and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for Truly in 1982.

He was also the first person to receive an RIAA Diamond album award. He has also been nominated for two Golden Globes and managed to win one.

More recently, in 2019, Lionel was a celebrity judge on American Idol where he reportedly earned $10M in his first year as a judge.

Real Estate

Richie currently owns a 1920-era Italian Renaissance mansion which he bought for $6M in 1992. Now it’s worth roughly $11M.

He also owns an office building in Beverly Hills and the Doubleday Bookstore building on Santa Monica Boulevard. He paid $3.5M for this in 1985.

Top 5 Lionel Richie Quotes

“When your past calls, don’t answer. It has nothing new to say.” – Lionel Richie

“Greatness comes from fear. Fear can either shut us down and we go home, or we fight through it.” – Lionel Richie

“Today we’ve learned to celebrate mediocrity. Back in the day we had creative artists; today we have created artists.” – Lionel Richie

“I always like to challenge myself. I never want to be put into a box.” – Lionel Richie

“I find myself going out on the road to get my confidence back, because I lose it at home.” – Lionel Richie

Summary

Lionel Richie is an internationally renowned singer and song-writer and his net worth stands at $200M.

Richie first rose to fame in R&B group The Commodores and later had an extremely successful solo career.

He has won four Grammy Awards and a Golden Globe.

As of 2021, Lionel Richie’s net worth is $200M.

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