Sam Amico
In the 1980s, Lionel Richie was a big deal. Like, huge. Second maybe only to Michael Jackson. OK, and maybe Prince and all those hair metal bands.
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But still, his songs offered people a reason to feel good, to dance (on the ceiling), to reflect and to feel. One, in particular, inspired them to try to go All Night Long.
But that was the 1980s, and this is … well, about 35-40 years later. So Richie, 73, admittedly has slowed down.
He said as much on The View, alongside fellow American Idol judges Luke Bryan and Katy Perry, when co-host Sarah Hines asked Richie the backstory of All Night Long.
“Let me give you the first part that I have to really, really say to you,” Richie answered, “when I wrote All Night Long, it was truly all night long.”
Now, Not So Much.
“Now my ‘all night long’ is down to a fierce 15 minutes,” Richie said.
The co-hosts and audience erupted into laughter, with Richie’s comments prompting a response from Perry.
“Fifteen minutes? That’s long, bud,” Perry said.
“And don’t you forget that, all right?” Richie said.
“As long as it’s not four times a night, seven days a week,” Perry responded.
Now, anyone who was around in 1983 likely had no idea what All Night Long was about and probably didn’t care. It took 40 years for us to find out, and frankly, a lot of us would prefer not to know.
Anyway, Richie is still benefitting from his 1980s popularity. For the past nine years, he’s been dating Lisa Parigi, who is 40 years younger than him — so she was born about the time All Night Long hit the pop charts.
“She’s extremely beautiful, but most importantly she’s smart and helps me deal with my crazy world,” Richie said recently.
“I’m a man who’s been through the ups and the downs, the ins and the outs of love,” he told People in 2019. “Love is not an exact science, it’s something you have to go through. People don’t walk in love, people fall, which means you’re out of control, there’s no logic. How you survive is your story.”
