Lionel Richie Net Worth

How much is Lionel Richie worth?

About Lionel Richie

Lionel Ritchie is a singer-songwriter, born June 20, 1949, in Tuskegee, Alabama. He is the son of Brockman Ritchie, a retired army captain, and Alberta Foster, a primary school teacher, and graduate. He grew up on the campus of the Tuskegee Institute in Macon County, where most of his family members worked for decades. Lionel graduated from Joilet Township High School, despite his poor grades.

He was a tennis star and won a scholarship to Tuskegee High School. He graduated from campus with a degree in economics. Before Richie went to university in Tuskegee, he was a member of the Episcopal Church. He wanted to become a priest. But he was very attracted to the world of music.

In the mid-1960s, while studying in Tuskegee, he formed several R&B groups. He was a Commodores member, an R&B band from the 1970s as a singer and saxophonist. It was a time when Richie began to contribute to the industry. Lionel and his fellow Commodores were able to play again for Jackson 5. They produced some great albums including Brick House, Still, Easy, Three Times a Lady, and Machine Gun.

He found success as a solo artist by releasing the single Truly from the debut album. This was followed by several more songs, including “Dancing on the Ceiling” and “Hello”. In 1985, he and Michael Jackson wrote the hunger song “We Are the World”. Lionel’s albums include Louder than Words (1996) and Coming Home (2006). He resumed his success with his 2012 country album Tuskegee. In 2018 he was appointed a judge in the reboot of American Idol.

Most of Richie’s melodies have conquered the soul and R&B stations around the world. His songs Truly, Hello, Say You, Say Me, and Three Times a Lady are synonymous with the name Lionel Richie. He was also the musician who co-wrote and compose the charity megahit We Are the World with Michael Jackson that sold over 20 million copies. It is the eighth best-selling physical single of all time.

Lionel Richie started a successful career with the Commodores and went on to have an even more successful solo career. Lionel is known the world over, interestingly, he is majorly famous in the Middle East, Japan and South East Asia.

He has worked with other superstar singers and musicians like Enrique Iglesias, Kenny Chesney, and Diana Ross. In addition to his music career, he has acted in films such as Pariah and Who Do You Thinks You Are series.

Lionel’s debut album in 1982 sold over four million copies. The second album came out better and sold twice as many copies. This album won him two Grammy awards and was double platinum. His song “Endless Love” was a huge hit in the music charts before his first album. The song sold over two million copies and was Motown’s biggest hits at the time. Lionel was established by the time “Hello” came out as the world’s best balladeer.

The 80s were what made it for Lionel. In total he sold over 100 million records and albums. His 1983 album Can’t Slow Down earned a Diamond Platinum when it reached sales of 10 million.

Three of his albums released in the 80s had four number 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 – Truly, All Night Long (All Night), Hello, Say You, Say Me. He also achieved over a dozen Top 10 singles overall on the Pop, R&B, and Adult Contemporary charts.

In 1994, he was inducted into the Composers Hall of Fame. He was also awarded the George and Ira Gershwin Award in 2008, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Throughout his massively popular and acclaimed music career, Richie enjoyed many paid opportunities to perform for a wide audience. He also had endorsement opportunities like being paid $1.3 million to take part in the Tap King beer advertising campaign in 2013.

Although his later albums in the 90s were not huge commercial successes, he continued to perform in concerts with upcoming and singers throughout the 2000s at the Philidelphia Museum of Art, Times Square (for New Year’s Eve), and on the season finale of American Idol.

In 2012, Lionel released Tuskegee, his 10th studio album which went to the top of the Billboard 200 chart; his first number one album after more than 25 years which became Platinum within six weeks of release. Lionel did not stop concert tours either. After his 2013 tour, which was the first tour in over 10 years, in 2019, he announced another tour which kicked off in May at Arlington’s KAABOO Festival. He is currently a judge on American Idol for which he is getting paid a reported $10 million per season.

He owns several luxury cars and mansions. Since the beginning of his career, Richie has sold over 100 million copies of his music. He continues to receive royalties from his music which are extraordinarily popular in the Arab world.

Lionel continues to record and tour around the world although he is not so well-known these days in his native United States. He has, however, found new audiences and achieved new success around the world. He is a huge hit and performed sell-out concerts in Dubai, Libya, Morocco, and Qatar.

Lionel’s soulful ballads were the standard-bearers of romanticism of the 80s, and became the go-to music during romantic nights in and weddings for couples around the world.

Richie strives to remain relevant and in January 2010, he teamed up with producer Quincy Jones to record a new version of We Are the World for the earthquake relief project in Haiti. Richie is often at the forefront of charity and awareness campaigns, including raising awareness of breast cancer in honor of his grandmother. Her grandmother survived the disease and lived to the age of 104. In 2017 he was honored at the Kennedy Honor Center where they paid tribute to Richie, known for hits such as Three Times a Lady and Say You, Say Me.

Richie’s Total Net Worth

Lionel Richie has earned estimated total career income of $385 million dollars. Richie earned $10 million as a judge on American Idol in 2019 and has sold 100 million records worldwide.

As Richie lived in the state of California during his career and earned through some high federal income tax years, he will have had to pay around 53% in taxes on his career income. After tax, it is estimated that his career earnings are at around $180.95 million dollars, having paid $204.05 million dollars in taxes.

Lionel Richie married Brenda Harvey-Richie 1975 and they divorced eighteen years later, in 1993. They had one child together, Nicole Richie, and it is estimated that $7-8 million dollars has gone in Brenda’s direction. Lionel later married Diane Alexander in 1995 and they divorced nine years later, in 2004. Ultimately, Lionel paid Diane a $20 million dollar divorce settlement.

In his personal life he has likely spent $12-17 million dollars of his career earnings but also earned $40-50 million dollars from his investments. He will have also had to pay around $7-8 million dollars in business related costs. Therefore, it is estimated that Lionel Richie has a net worth of about $175 million dollars.

Summing-Up

Musician and composer Lionel Richie is a world-famous and respected artist. His successful career started at Tuskegee University with the R&B chart stop and the band Commodores Soul and Funk. He continues his solo career, which began in 1980. He spent time publishing the popular music chart. He is also in the Top 5 of the band’s albums. The hit “Brick House”, which secured 5th place in the U.S. R&B charts, helped the band to get into the R&B spotlight. His solo career “Dancing on the Ceiling”, released in 1986, is still considered one of his successes to this day. It won first place in the Billboard Hot 200 and has sold more than 4 million copies. Richie has won 17 awards, including the Grammy, American Music Awards and Billboard Music Awards.