Nicole Richie Makes Rare Red Carpet Return With Kate Madden
nicole richie made a rare red carpet appearance with her 18-year-old daughter Kate Madden at the Los Angeles premiere of Stop! That! Train! on May 18. It was the pair’s first public red carpet outing together in over two years, turning a film premiere into a family moment that stood out for how infrequent it was.
Richie, 44, arrived with Madden, 18, and posted several photos from the night on Instagram the next day. She wrote, “STOP THAT TRAIN Premiere turned girls night out.” For readers tracking Richie’s public appearances, the detail that matters is not the premiere itself but the fact that this was their first red carpet together in more than two years.
May 18 in Los Angeles
Richie wore a navy and white polka dot dress with a matching head scarf and a fur trimmed white coat. Madden wore a short and strapless leather dress with leather boots. The look worked as a coordinated appearance without being overly staged, which is rare enough in celebrity family coverage to make the outing land as a real event rather than a routine photo op.
The choice to appear together also followed a quieter family update earlier this year: Richie publicly confirmed in January that her daughter had chosen to go by Kate instead of Harlow. Joel Madden later said on Bunnie Xo's Dumb Blonde podcast in March that Kate had been going by her middle name since first grade, adding, “She chose it.”
Kate Madden at school
Joel Madden described how the name switch surfaced at school, saying, “The teacher was like, 'Kate's doing great. She's so nice,'” and, “We're like, 'Who's Kate?' And they're like, 'Your daughter, Kate. That's what she said her name was.'” He added, “You go by Kate at school?” and quoted her reply: “Yeah, I like it.”
That backdrop gives the May 18 outing a little more weight: Richie’s daughter was not just making a red carpet appearance, but doing it publicly under the name she has been using for years. Richie has another child, her 16-year-old son Sparrow, but the Los Angeles premiere put the focus squarely on the mother-daughter pairing.
Instagram on May 19
Richie’s May 19 Instagram post extended the night beyond the carpet and into her own feed, where she framed the outing as a girls’ night out. The post gave fans a second look at the appearance, but the bigger takeaway is simple: after more than two years without a shared red carpet, Richie and Madden chose a film premiere for their return to that kind of public setting.
