In the '80s, Lionel Richie was known for his hit songs, Grammy awards and multi-million selling albums. But now Richie is becoming more popular with another generation who know him only as a father.

His daughter Nicole, along with Paris Hilton, started their second season on the reality show Simple Life 2: Road Trip Wednesday evening. Richie, during a promotional stop in Toronto yesterday, said he sees her success as everything coming full circle.

"It's funny, because I found myself sounding like my father," Richie said.

He told her, " 'This is crazy, why don't you go to school? Get a degree.' I stopped and said, 'Who was that, that sounded like somebody familiar.' And I went from screaming and hollering at her to laughter.

"All the things I told her a young lady should and shouldn't do, manners, yes ma'am, no ma'am, she took that list and threw it out the window. And now the world loves her for it.

Continuing in his dad mode, he said, "Of course, it's just like the Commodores," referring to his '70s soul band. "Wear your hair short, why do you have so much hair? Why are you wearing those ridiculous platform boots? And it was anything to shock my parents.

"If (Nicole) listened to me the way my father wanted me to listen, I wouldn't be here and she wouldn't be here either."

But here she is, and her father is proud of her.

"What I'm intrigued with is her ability to take a set-up for the show, which is obviously not going to be flattering, and make it witty and make it something that people will think is hilarious," he said. "It's like a great Lucille Ball skit where (the writers) put them in a position and say, 'Now get out of it.' The timing is perfect from a comedic point of view. It's almost modern slapstick."

As for his own career, when Richie started work on his latest album Just For You, everything was "blissful." But just as his life changed during a messy and public divorce from his wife Diane, so too did the tone of the album.

"The marriage fell apart in the middle of the album," he said. "You hear all this wonderful optimism in the beginning with I Still Believe. And then we deal with the 'Lionel Richie's got to get you married, pregnant or otherwise divorced songs.' So somewhere between Ball And Chain and She's Amazing, my marriage fell apart."

He married his wife Diane, a former waitress, dancer and clothing designer, in 1996, and they were divorced this past January. They shared a $40-million, 30-room Beverly Hills mansion and a full-time staff of nine, and have a 5-year-old daughter, Sofia, and 9-year-old son, Miles.

Richie, who sees the glass being not only half full but overflowing, said writing the songs during the marriage breakup proved to be quite cathartic.

"I've often heard that writers find the best songs when they are in frickin' pain, but it's not so much pain as it is truth," he said.

"It's hard to lie to yourself. I don't care how poetic you're going to be, you're going to write what you feel. As painful as it may be, it's almost like going to group therapy. It's simplicity, that's what this album is about. I see things in simplicity."

Richie also appeared on Oprah to talk about the divorce. "There's something very freeing about honesty or about embarrassment in public," he said. "There it is and then it's over. You don't have to cover another thing. With Oprah it was like, 'If you have nude pictures of me when I was 19, 20, 21 here, I'm going to give you some updated ones.' If you're honest and open enough to say, 'Yeah' then people go, 'Wow.' And after Bill Clinton, there's not too much to shock the world with."

What might shock people is the genre-jumping on the album, which goes from a Celtic sway on Just To Be With You Again to gospel during I Still Believe.

Richie also had some assistance from pop singer Daniel Bedingfield on Do Ya and Lenny Kravitz on Time Of Our Life.

"I learned a very valuable thing in working with them," he said. "The old school is the new school. I asked Daniel Bedingfield what kind of song he wanted to write; he said a Commodores song. And then Lenny! 'Excuse me. That's my afro, those are my leather pants and my snakeskin jacket!' It's hilarious and a great compliment when you get the new school asking you, 'Tell me how you did that.' "