Lionel Richie revealed that he almost joined the Episcopal priesthood before one encouraging shoutout from an audience member convinced him to pursue a musical career. 

In his new memoir "Truly," the 76-year-old music icon recalled growing up, he was a "disastrously shy altar boy" who considered becoming a member of the clergy and was training for the priesthood.

During a Friday appearance on "Today with Jenna & Friends" to promote his tell-all, Richie recalled the pivotal moment, while performing with his college band, The Commodores, that inspired him to commit to music. 

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"I couldn’t figure out what the heck to do with my life, couldn’t figure it out," the four-time Grammy Award winner said. "I’m as shy as I can be. And then I realized, maybe the priesthood might be the best way to go."

"Here’s what happened to change my mind," Richie continued. "I joined the Commodores in my second semester of my sophomore year and something amazing happened. A lady on the front row of some club said, ‘Sing it, baby!’"

Richie said that the audience member's comment prompted him to contact church leadership and abandon his training for the priesthood.

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"I called back to the priest and I said, ‘I don’t think I’m going to be college material. I just gotta be honest with you,’" the "All Night Long" hitmaker said. "There’s a moment when you have that moment."

"All of a sudden, I got an acknowledgment from the other side," Richie continued. "From that point on, I kept thinking, now how does this go forward? I didn't know I was a writer, didn't know I was a singer. Thank God for The Commodores because I would have never discovered Lionel Richie."

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Richie admitted that he continued to struggle with his shyness while he was performing with The Commodores. 

"Scared to death, can you imagine having panic attacks on stage?" the "American Idol" judge said. "But I wanted to be in this band so badly, and I wanted to be in this business." 

In "Truly," Richie recalled telling the priests at his church that he had second thoughts about his vocation for the priesthood.  

"They gave me wise words of encouragement and told me that if things changed the door was always open," Richie wrote. "In fact, in the coming years, whenever I worried that the music thing was to be short-lived, I’d talk about returning to my earlier plans." 

He continued, "I even picked out a seminary in Wyoming. Never went. The moment of truth probably arrived when I began to write songs—and realized they were my real sermons.

"Truly" will be released nationwide on Oct. 15, 2025, through HarperCollins.

Maryland officials reinterred 65 of the state's earliest settlers in a powerful ceremony more than 300 years after the settlers' first burials.

The reinterment was held at Historic St. Mary's City, a colonial town off the western shore of Chesapeake Bay, on Sept. 20. Earlier this year, the site drew national headlines when it opened up a reconstructed 17th-century Catholic church. 

The Brick Chapel was the center of Catholic worship in Maryland until 1704, when the Protestant governor of Maryland shuttered the building's doors. 

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The recent reinterment marked the chapel’s most meaningful use yet. Henry Miller, Ph.D., a senior research fellow at Historic St. Mary's City, spoke to Fox News Digital about the observance.

Sept. 20 marked the day the 65 individuals were finally returned to a new burial vault after their remains had been respectfully studied and preserved.

The event, attended by Archbishop of Baltimore William E. Lori, included a procession, a chapel blessing and the reburial.

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Miller painstakingly planned all the period-accurate details, he said, such as the horse-drawn hearse, the cannon salute and the inclusion of "Salve Regina," a hymn that settlers would have known well.

"Having the archbishop was important, as these [settlers] were almost all Catholics," he said. 

"The parts were all planned to create a dignified, memorable and honorable ceremony to return these people to their resting place."

Miller said it took six hours to place all the remains in the vault. To save time, the public ceremony focused on what he called "the most forgotten" — the babies left out of historical records.

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"We placed the remains of eight of them in small black boxes wrapped with black ribbon and a sprig of rosemary attached," he said. "They were in the coffin [we carried]." 

He went on, "I found eight pallbearers who are descendants of 17th-century Maryland immigrants …. Once the coffin was brought into the chapel with an honor guard, the archbishop blessed their remains, and each pallbearer was given a box to carry to the burial vault for interment."

Miller added, "I named the pallbearer and their ancestor, and then said what we could about the little baby they were holding." 

All of the details, down to the coffin, were as accurate and respectful as possible, he said.

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"The coffin itself is a precise reconstruction of one we excavated at the site," Miller said. "We also carefully measured the locations and orientations of all the nails and the soil stains from the coffin wood, so that it was possible to fully and accurately reconstruct it.

"My goal was to honor these long-forgotten men, women and children, showing them dignity and respect at the place they had been buried over three centuries ago," he added. 

Miller also said, "As an archaeologist who helped excavate them, I felt both a professional and personal obligation to see them properly reinterred. It was the proper and respectful way to treat them."

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Before the burial, researchers studied the remains and gleaned insights on everything from chronic illnesses and dental care to lead ingestion and diet in colonial America — something that Miller says will be the subject of a future book.

He also said the event could serve as a model for how excavated remains are treated elsewhere in the U.S., noting that respecting ancestors "is a deeply seated human tradition."

"I feel we honored them as the founders of Maryland, and as individuals who sacrificed much to do that, giving up all they knew to try for a new life in an unfamiliar land," he said. 

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"All of them have been forgotten for centuries, except by a few historians, and this has allowed us to return them to memory."

Beyond Maryland's history, the archaeologist also used the event to deliver a national message about tolerance and coexistence.

The call came just 10 days after Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was shot in Utah, a stark reminder of how political violence continues to divide the U.S.

"[Marylanders] learned that people with different viewpoints can live together without violence," Miller said in his speech. "That is a legacy as important in late 2025 as it was in the 1600s."

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Overall, Miller said that St. Mary's City should be recognized as much as Jamestown and Plymouth, considering the colonial settlement's role in pioneering religious liberty.

"These people set the precedent in North America, beginning in 1634, for a core part of the American experience as expressed in the First Amendment, [meaning] no established church and the free exercise of religion," he said. "The first North American introduction of these ideas happened at St. Mary's City."

"That should place St. Mary's on a par with Jamestown and Plymouth as founding places of the American experience."