The Complete Biography On

Nicole Richie.

Nicole Richie was born in Berkeley, California. Her biological father is widely rumored to be musician Pete Escovedo, brother of 1980s pop percussionist Sheila E. and son of famed Latin percussionist Pete Escovedo, but this was directly denied by Nicole in the November 2005 issue of Jane magazine. According to an April 2006 Tatler magazine interview with Nicole, her biological father was a drummer who worked with Lionel Richie; her biological mother was a backstage assistant for Lionel. When Nicole was 3, Lionel and his wife Brenda Harvey-Richie informally adopted her and raised her as their daughter. When she was 9, they went through the legal formalities of the adoption; she still speaks with her biological mother. A year later, Lionel and Brenda split, and in their guilt over the separation, "Their way of making me happy was to say yes to everything I wanted, but I don't think a little girl should have that much freedom," said Richie in an interview with Vanity Fair magazine [1]. She smoked marijuana, cocaine, and heroin; was arrested three times; and had five car accidents. Not until she went into drug rehabilitation in 2003 did Richie and her parents have an open conversation about her addiction."I'm now, at 24, just learning to deal with my problems instead of concealing them with drugs," she said in the interview. Nicole has studied the cello, violin, piano, and some figure skating, and she has plans to pursue a music career. She also attended the University of Arizona for two years after graduating from high school. She stated, "I went to the University of Arizona. I stopped because I went there for two years and I felt like I experienced college or whatever. I'm over it." Her godfather is Michael Jackson. [edit] The Simple Life Nicole and Paris Hilton starred in the 2003 reality series The Simple Life, in which they lived for a month with a family in the rural community of Altus, Arkansas. Later seasons of the show had Richie and Hilton in a road-trip across the United States, and an East Coast trek on a Greyhound bus while performing various internships. On 20 April 2005, amid media reports that their friendship was in trouble, Paris Hilton released a statement saying "It's no big secret that Nicole and I are no longer friends," and "Nicole knows what she did, and that's all I'm ever going to say about it." A circulating rumor was the story that Nicole had shown Paris' sex tape at a party (Richie has denied this [2]). There were also rumors of Hilton's being jealous of Nicole's rising stardom. Richie, however, said "There's nothing that really happened, we've just grown apart." In the November 2005 Jane magazine interview, she also said "We really haven't been friends in probably about two years." They had been friends since childhood. Richie is still friends with Paris' sister Nicky Hilton, who was to serve as a bridesmaid at Nicole's wedding, until it was called off in December 2005. Initially, because of the end of Richie's friendship with Hilton, Kimberly Stewart was tapped to be her replacement in The Simple Life 4. In late 2005, FOX dropped The Simple Life saying they didn't see a place for it in their schedule. [3] A month later, cable network E! picked up the fourth season - The Simple Life: Till Death Do Us Part - with both Hilton and Richie as participants, in a wife swap style program, though both would do tasks separately and not be seen together on screen. [4] [edit] Other career activities She has also made appearances in films and Fox's MadTV. Her first major acting role was a supporting role as cheerleader Kelly Stepford in 2005 comedy Kids In America. Richie recently wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, The Truth About Diamonds. The novel is loosely based on her life, but is mostly fictional. It chronicles Chloe Parker, the adopted daughter of a singer who makes her way through all of the hottest nightclubs and parties in Hollywood and battles a drug addiction. It was rumored that a character in the book, Simone Westlake, was based on Hilton; Simone does a few things similarly to her, such as "accidentally on purpose" losing her cellular telephone and circulating the phone numbers of celebrities to the general public. On December 1st, 2005, Richie signed a deal with 20th Century Fox Television that could land her in a TV sitcom. Richie's deal could either put her into an existing show or have a new show built around her. She is rumoured to be joining the cast of The OC in its fourth season. Richie is a former model for Bongo Jeans, and is the current face of Jimmy Choo. Richie also holds a position promoting Diet Dr Pepper, and she has been seen promoting the soft drink in several locations. [edit] Music career Another current project of Richie's is a music album, with no release date specified as of yet. The songs reported to be done so far are a mixture of rock, soul and dance. One track, called "Dandelion", which is a demo recording and a cover of a song by boy band LFO, was leaked early; it is a melodic pop-track. In 2005, Richie appeared in and co-hosted at the 19th Annual Soul Train Music Awards. Supposedly as seen on AOL, it is said that Nicole will get her album out soon so it can compete with Paris Hilton's album. A picture of Nicole's album cover has leaked onto the net, however the image was found to be fake. As of August 2006, Nicole has 6 tracks finished for her record.[citation needed] [edit] Media spotlight In February of 2003, Richie was arrested in Malibu, California, and charged with possession of heroin. She has since been a patient in a drug-rehabilitation hospital. In December 2003, she publicly spoke out in defense of her godfather Michael Jackson following his accusations of child molestation. Following the 2003 Billboard Music Awards, the FCC received 80,000 complaints after Richie said "fucking" and "shit" during the show's broadcast (the network didn't edit the words). This was the FCC complaint record, until it was broken following Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake's appearance at Super Bowl XXXVIII. The FCC ruled that the words were indecent, but did not fine FOX. In early 2005, Richie received tabloid speculation of having an eating disorder. Richie, however, said that "I've always been really skinny. I just went through a heavier stage after rehab and during Simple Life 1. Now I have a trainer and the weight has gradually come off." Richie, however, acknowledged in a May 2006 Vanity Fair interview that she knew that she was too thin and stated that she was on the path to gaining weight, adding that she was worried young girls would want to look like her. Nicole's stylist, Rachel Zoe, is also the stylist of three of her friends, Mischa Barton, Lindsay Lohan and Andrew Brin. [edit] Relationships Nicole dated Canadian music producer and entrepreneur Brad Salyn for several months in 2002. The two continue to be friends, with Salyn producing several tracks on Nicole's upcoming debut album. She was engaged to club DJ Adam Goldstein also known as D.J. AM. They announced their engagement in February 2005 after dating since 2003 and were set to marry in summer 2006. On December 7th, 2005, she and Adam broke off their 9 month engagement, but they were publicly seen together again in early 2006. It has been confirmed that they have split up again.[citation needed] It has been rumored that she is currently dating actor Jeff Goldblum.[citation needed] They have received a lot of media attention[citation needed] due to the apparent age difference.[citation needed] [edit] Her Dogs Nicole has two dogs of whom have starred with her on The Simple Life. In the first season Nicole stated that she had her dog Honeychild at the time but was not aware that she was allowed to take her on the trip. In the second season Nicole did bring her dog Honeychild along for the ride. Honeychild was often criticized for not being "as cute as Tinkerbell" (Paris Hilton's dog who has starred in every season of The Simple Life. Between filming seasons two and three Nicole bought a pomeranian puppy she named Foxy Cleopatra, after Beyonce Knowles's character in Austin Powers: Goldmember. During the third season of The Simple Life both Foxy and Honeychild came with Nicole. After that Foxy Cleopatra was said to be "even cuter that Tinkerbell". Since then Nicole now is seen around L.A. most often with her dogs and they star in Nicole's show The Simple Life.