Lionel Richie says daughter Nicole and Drew Barrymore's wild days 'almost killed' him

Lionel Richie can't believe he survived his daughter Nicole Richie and her friend Drew Barrymore's rambunctious youth.

During a March 30 appearance on "The Drew Barrymore Show," Lionel Richie, 73, hilariously recalled what it was like when the girls used to hang out together in their younger years and said they were like "one big ham sandwich."

Barrymore said they created their own “little girl wolf pack" after they met as children and quickly became “dear friends."

"I think Nicole and I have figured out how to have so much fun and then pull it together and be like really good moms," she shared.

However, Lionel Richie said he didn't even know how that happened because as a parent, he always thought: ‘This is going to be a disaster.’"

The "We Are the World" singer said things got even crazier once Paris Hilton came into the mix because that's when the girls became this "little committee," who he likes to call "the bitty committee.

"If I lived through that, I can live through anything," he said of the girls constantly getting into trouble.

"And then you go, there is no way that this is going to transcend over to a family with husbands and kids," he said. "No way — and they turned out perfectly."

Barrymore explained that they might've come out OK because they were able to "get it all out of our systems."

"I'm so glad you got it out of your system," he quipped.

Lionel Richie said he "almost lost consciousness" during their wild behavior, recalling the night he received a phone call about his daughter driving down the wrong side of the freeway.

"I'm thinking to myself, 'This is not possible.' All I want to find out is who's going to pay me back all that medication I took. That's all I care about," he said before Barrymore responded, "Both of us will."

Richie then spoke about the time he was asked, "How did you make it through all of this?" He said his response was simply, "'I was somewhere between meditation and medication.'"

The dad of three, who adopted Nicole Richie when she was 9 years old, then started to think about his life as a kid and said he was rebellious too. Richie said, his daughter's antics were far "worse" because she was acting out in Beverly Hills instead of his home state of Alabama.

But no matter how concerned he was for his daughter and Barrymore, Lionel Richie said he's now breathing a sigh of relief.

"You're doing really well," he told Barrymore while holding her hand.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com