Lionel Richie knows the fame game can be a challenge, and issued a warning to rising celebrities after Chappell Roan faced backlash following a negative fan encounter. 

During a sit-down with his son-in-law, Joel Madden, the Good Charlotte frontman admitted he hadn’t once heard his father-in-law complain about fans approaching him in public. 

“I was invisible once,” Richie explained, before acknowledging that he has a difficult time ignoring fans. “They want to say something to you. And you can see it on their face. They want to say something. And for me to ignore them, would be the worst.”

RIO MAYOR BANS CHAPPELL ROAN FROM PERFORMING IN HIS CITY AFTER FAN INCIDENT CONTROVERSY

He added, “Sometimes you meet the person you idolize the most, and you’re sorry you met them. 

The “All Night Long” singer said, “I made a promise to myself – I’m never going to be that. Never.”

Richie noted that star status isn’t for everyone.

“The thing that happens a lot of times is, I tell people when they get into the business, there’s one thing you didn’t calculate,” he said. “I hope you like people.

“Because if you don’t like people, here’s how it’s going to sound. You spend the first half of your career going, ‘Look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me.’ And then you finally get famous. ‘Don’t look at me. Don’t look at me. Don’t look at me.’”

He added, “The universe gave you what you asked for. Now what is it about people that you don’t like, or you want to be famous and rich without the people? It doesn’t work like that. You have to be able to engage.”

While in town last week to perform at Lollapalooza Brazil, the “Pink Pony Club” singer allegedly directed security to scold his daughter after she spotted Chappell having breakfast at the hotel in São Paulo, according to professional soccer star Jorginho Frello.

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Chappell, 28, addressed the incident on Instagram stories and later denied the fan encounter after the “very upsetting” situation caught the eye of Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Cavaliere.

In a statement shared on X, Cavaliere said that Chappell was no longer welcome to perform in his city.

“I mean that as long as I’m in charge of our city — this young lady @ChappellRoan will never perform at Todo Mundo No Rio,” he wrote in a statement translated from Portuguese. I doubt that Shakira would do that! By the way, @FrelloJorginho, your little one is already the guest of honor from the organization in May!”

The “Good Luck, Babe!” singer jumped on social media Sunday morning to explain her “half of the story” while lying in bed.

“I didn’t even see. I didn’t even see a woman and a child. No one came up to me. No one bothered me,” the musician confided in her followers while lying in bed. “I was just sitting at breakfast in my hotel, I think these people were staying at the hotel as well.”

“I did not ask the security guard to go up and talk to this mother and child. They did not come up to me. They weren’t doing anything.”

She added, “I do not hate people who are fans of my music. I do not hate children. Like, that is crazy.”

“I am sorry to the mother and child that someone was assuming something, that you would do something and that if you felt uncomfortable, that makes me really sad. You did not deserve that.” 

Jorginho, a midfielder for Campeonato Brasileiro Série A club Flamengo, wrote on Instagram stories that his family went through a “very upsetting situation” involving Chappell prior to her Lollapalooza Brazil set.

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He claimed online that his 11-year-old daughter was reprimanded by Chappell’s security for looking at the singer.

“The worst part is she didn’t even approach her,” he wrote. “She simply walked past the singer’s table, looked to confirm it was her, smiled, and went back to sit with her mum. She didn’t say anything, didn’t ask for anything.”

Jorghino wrote that after his daughter walked by, “A large security guard came over to their table while they were still having breakfast and began speaking in an extremely aggressive manner to both my wife and my daughter, saying that she shouldn’t allow my daughter to ‘disrespect’ or ‘harass’ other people.”

He added, “It’s sad to see this kind of treatment coming from those who should understand the importance of fans. At the end of the day, they are the ones who build all of this. I sincerely hope this serves as a moment of reflection. No one should have to go through this, especially not a child.”

A Frontier Airlines flight was moved to an isolated runway at Atlanta’s airport Sunday after a passenger made a bomb threat, prompting a law enforcement response before officials deemed the threat non-credible.

Frontier Flight 2539 from Columbus, Ohio, had landed at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and was taxiing to the gate when a passenger allegedly made the verbal threat.

As a precaution and in coordination with local authorities, the aircraft was redirected to a remote location where law enforcement responded.

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Passengers deplaned using airstairs and were bused to the terminal. Authorities later determined the threat was not credible.

The FBI and Atlanta Police Department told Fox News the incident remains under investigation, with the FBI taking the lead. Atlanta police initially took the lead and it is unclear why the FBI took over.

Atlanta police would not say whether anyone has been arrested.

This is a developing story.

It’s hardly shocking to learn that our lawmakers fell down on the job, given the inability of Congress to solve just about any problem.

Just look at how long the self-inflicted airport chaos dragged on while the parties squabbled.

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For more than a decade, Capitol Hill has been all talk and no action when it comes to the tech giants that are hooking generations of kids. One reason is that these companies are incredibly wealthy and increasingly determined to use their colossal amounts of cash to buy influence.

In the 2024 cycle, Big Tech made more than $764 million in donations.

Elon Musk, the ruler of X, contributed more than $240 million. Tech guru Marc Andreessen and his firm donated $89 million. Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple each kicked in $1 million for President Trump’s inauguration.

Lo and behold, the few lawmakers pushing legislation to help ensure the safety of kids online found their bills going nowhere fast. 

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That’s why a pair of verdicts against Silicon Valley giants is so important, and a potential turning point.

By filing these suits, individuals are trying to do what the politicians will not, and that’s to hold these mega-corporations accountable.

In a New Mexico case last week, a jury ordered Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, to pay $375 million for endangering children,

The next day, a Los Angeles jury found both Meta and Google, which owns YouTube, guilty of negligence and awarded $6 million to a woman who argued that as a child she had become addicted to these sites.

The numbers are a rounding error for these corporations. But with thousands of other suits pending, the message is not.

And the companies are getting clobbered in the court of public opinion.

Mark Lanier, a lawyer for the L.A. plaintiff known as KGM, told Fox Business: “I believe the companies have purposely put addictive features into their apps because they know the more time we spend watching, the more money they make.” He has also cited the lure of autoplay videos and algorithmic recommendations, 

“Is this the beginning of the end for social media as we know it?” asked the host of Britain’s Fourcast podcast. 

That, I must say, is a tad melodramatic. 

In the California case, KGM, a 20-year-old woman, said such features as the “infinite scroll” got her addicted as a kid and led to depression, anxiety and thoughts of self-harm. (She started using YouTube at 6 and Instagram at 9, though both require a minimum age of 13.)

In that trial, Mark Zuckerberg was asked about lifting a temporary ban on beauty filters that some at Meta cautioned could be harmful to teenage girls.

“I felt like the evidence wasn’t clear enough to support limiting people’s expression,” he said.

But the verdicts may not be as apocalyptic as they seem right now.

For one thing, they could be overturned on appeal. It’s not hard to imagine a conservative Supreme Court delivering such a ruling.

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The companies point to Section 230 of a 1996 communications law, which shields them from liability for what users post on the sites. The latest lawsuits have focused instead on how these platforms  are designed, with “like” buttons and other features.

The Wall Street Journal editorial page warns of a “shakedown” by lawyers:

“There’s no doubt that increasing teen use of social media and smartphones over the last 15 years has coincided with rising levels of depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses. But it’s hard if not impossible to prove that social media caused any given individual’s troubles, let alone apportion liability among the platforms.”

The Journal added: “Trial lawyers will now use the L.A. verdict in advertisements to recruit more plaintiffs. They may even use the social-media platforms to advertise. Unemployed? Depressed? Spend your Friday nights scrolling? You could make big money by holding billionaires responsible for your problems.”  

In fairness, there must be some level of personal responsibility here, especially among parents setting boundaries for their children.

And little surprise that Congress, which is addicted to political donations, is MIA.

The tactics of the techies remind me of Big Tobacco, which is clearly marketed to teenagers in an effort to get them addicted for life. Obviously, no one’s dying of cancer here, but depression can also be a crippling disease.

Back in 1998, Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds, accused of hiding information about the dangers of smoking, were pressured into a $206-billion settlement with more than 40 states.

The bottom line is that these tech companies were once admired, but their conduct over the years, on children and other issues, has seriously scarred their reputations.

Meta’s president, Dina Powell McCormick, told Axios: “As a mom, this is really important to me, and very personal. I see firsthand just how hard the company is trying to ensure that there’s not harmful content, to ensure we’re empowering parents to the best of our ability, and it’s something that I watch being focused on every single day.”

Sorry, but that doesn’t cut it. I’m not doubting her sincerity. But if Meta and the others had really reformed how they treat children, they wouldn’t be in this legal mess today.