Music legend Lionel, 66, will appear on the new series of Piers Morgan’s Life Stories, and opened up about how Nicole, 33, came to join his family.
During his episode, which will air tomorrow night, Lionel told Piers: “I went to a Prince concert, there on stage was a four-year-old kid playing the tambourine.”
Shockingly Lionel revealed that, while Nicole was playing unsupervised at such a young age, her parents were busy arguing.
But he quickly intervened. “So I went backstage,” he added. “I knew her mother and father… and I said, ‘While you are having difficulty the kid is sitting in limbo. Put her in my house, when the tour is over we will sort this out’.”
It only took Nicole a year to see Lionel as her father, and he revealed he quickly ‘fell in love’ with his new daughter.
He continued: “I told her, ‘You are going to make everyone in your family wish they had a chance to get you back’. That’s when I said, ‘Let’s adopt her’. The rest is beautiful.”
And the singer, just like any other father, had to watch Nicole make some bad decisions as she was growing up.
Nicole was once known for her love of partying, and Lionel gave his daughter a grave warning.
“I told her, ‘When I was growing up I lost three of the hippest friends I knew in life,’ he revealed. “I said, ‘It’s going to happen to your generation’.”
Chillingly Nicole did lose two friends to drugs, but her father’s gave warning saved her from meeting the same fate.