Biography:

Nicole Camille Escovedo was born in Berkeley, California, on September 21, 1981. Her parents were Peter Michael Escovedo, a member of Lionel Richie's band and brother to drummer Sheila E., and an unidentified backstage work hand.

At the age of three, for financial reasons, she moved in with her father's friend Lionel and his wife Brenda Harvey-Richie. Six years later, she adopted Nicole and she became Nicole Richie.

There are lots of privileges to being raised in the rich Hollywood culture. Her early youth was spent at Los Angeles' prominent Buckley School, where she met and became best friends with Paris Hilton, one of the heirs to the Hilton Hotel family empire.

But wealth often drives one into trouble and the dangerous Hollywood temptations and excessive hard living that accompany it, and as a sexy young teen, she started using drugs and alcohol. After her high school graduation in 2000, she decided to try and put the drugs, sex and alcohol behind her and attend college.

She took a stab at the University of Arizona, but decided two years later that college was not for her and dropped out.

With the experiences of her younger days still fresh, she decided to try her hand at becoming a musician and rock star. She started the rock group "Darling" with super model Josie Maran and socialite sisters Soleil and Sofia Alberti.

She was never able to totally break away from the habits of her teenage years of drug and alcohol abuse. In February 2003, the police stopped her in Malibu where she was questioned and later determined to be operating a motor vehicle with a suspended drivers license. After searching her Mercedes-Benz, police found heroin in the vehicle and she was arrested for possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia. She later pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced to probation and ordered into a drug rehab program.

She was first hired for the television series "The Simple Life" as a stand-in for Paris Hilton's' sister Nicky, and was not interested in working on the project full time. The series was first aired in 2003 and was a smash hit with the young teenage crowd, and was enough to give the green light to two sequels: "The Simple Life 2: Road Trip" and "The Simple Life 3: Interns".

The recognition that "The Simple Life" allowed her to try her talent at other television projects. She made guest appearances on such shows as "Eve" (starring rapper Eve), Ashton Kutcher's "Punk'd", "Rock Me Baby", and "MAD TV". She was cast next to Julie Bowen in "Kids In America", and is still working on her music and attempting another break into the music industry.

She has been romantically connected to Elijah Blue Allman and in February 2005, and it was reported that she was engaged to disc jockey Adam "DJ AM" Goldstein. In 2007, she announced she was pregnant. 

Harlow Winter Kate Madden was born Friday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, weighing in at 6 pounds, 7 ounces. It is her first child with Joel Madden, 28, the lead singer of pop-punk band Good Charlotte.

"The beautiful healthy baby girl left the hospital with her ecstatic parents," the couple's rep at Handprint Entertainment told People magazine.

Richie and Madden have been dating for a little over a year. After widespread speculation about the Simple Life star's swelling figure last summer, they confirmed they were expecting a new baby during an August interview with Diane Sawyer.