Real Simple

The child of a superstar who made her entertainment debut on a reality show, Nicole Richie has nonetheless established herself as a bona fide fashion force with her line House of Harlow 1960.

- Kavita Daswani

EVEN THOUGH SHE is 35, Nicole Richie still inadvertently makes her superstar father shed tears of pride each time they see one another.

“I tell him: ‘Dad, let’s take it down a notch.’ But he’s very proud.”

Lionel Richie has every reason to feel pride. His daughter was once on a reality show, which made her instantly famous and as a result of that, she could have gone down any number of roads, including some predictably dark ones. She spent four years on The Simple Life with Paris Hilton, which took the girls out of their cosseted Beverly Hills lives and put them into rural towns. It was one of the first in the reality-show genre and the concept ignited.

Richie has since gone on to build a thriving and highly respected jewellery and fashion brand, House of Harlow 1960. She and her husband, musician Joel Madden, who is also a coach on The Voice in Australia, have two children. She has a close relationship with her extended family, which includes Cameron Diaz, who married Joel Madden’s brother, Benji. And next year, she will be seen on a new Tina Fey-helmed TV comedy, Great News.