Lionel Richie considered becoming a priest

He said: "I left my mom and dad's house to go to university, and I met my Commodore friends there. At the time I was seriously considering being an Episcopal priest."

However, his plan to become a man of the cloth soon became a distant dream when he heard the girls screaming for him in his first show with the Commodores.

He added to People magazine: "[But] the first time I played with the Commodores, a group of girls screamed. Up until that moment no one, no girl, had ever screamed at me. I didn't play basketball, football, baseball. I played on the tennis team, and no girl ever screamed at the tennis court. It was right after those girls screamed, I remembered saying to myself, 'I don't think I'm gonna be priest material.'"

Lionel previously insisted he never wants to stop touring.

He said: "The tour hasn't stopped. Once someone asked me how long is this tour gonna last, and I said, well I've been on tour since '71."

However, he feared a knee injury was going to end his career.

He explained: "You go into denial and you are like, 'Oh, OK, I am having a little knee problem, I will just do some more shows and work it out.' In the old days if you got a little pain, you work it out. Well, the more I started doing shows, what I had was a torn meniscus and the guys said what you do with that is you have to stop, and I didn't know how to stop."