All About Maya Rudolph's Parents, Minnie Riperton and Richard Rudolph

Maya Rudolph was raised by her father Richard Rudolph after her mother Minnie Riperton died in 1979

Maya Rudolph has impersonated Beyoncé on Saturday Night Live, sang with Amy Adams in the Disney movie Disenchanted and even played keyboard in the rock band The Rentals — so it comes as no surprise that both of her parents, Minnie and Richard, are legendary musicians.

Maya is the youngest child of late singer Minnie Riperton (who is best known for her iconic 1970s hit “Lovin’ You") and music producer Richard Rudolph. The couple constantly collaborated, with Richard writing and producing many of Riperton’s songs. As a result, some of Maya’s earliest memories are related to her parents’ music.

“My mom was music,” Maya told NPR. “Music poured out of my mother, and I’m sure I heard it before I even got here when I was in her belly. Music sounds and feels very normal to me. My dad wrote all the songs with my mom.”

Related: Maya Rudolph Opens Up About Having 'Amazing Women' in Her Life 'Who Help Me Raise My Kids'

As a result of her upbringing, Maya initially pursued a career in music. She joined the indie rock group The Rentals in the mid-'90s and opened for acts including Alanis Morissette and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

“Music is such a natural part of me, it was something that I always did,” Maya explained to Interview magazine. “So a gig came up, and then it became a job, and the next thing I knew I was just out of college and I thought, 'All right, I’ll do music, because it’s the one thing I can do easily without ever worrying about it.' ”

Although Maya eventually segued into an Emmy award-winning comedy and acting career, music — and her mother’s legacy — still inspires her. (The Saturday Night Live alum told Entertainment Weekly in 2021 that she was “dipping a toe” into music again.)

From her musical roots to her “hippie” childhood, here’s everything to know about Maya Rudolph’s parents, Minnie Riperton and Richard Rudolph.

Riperton and Richard were both talented musicians

Maya’s career may be in comedy, but her parents both worked in the music industry — Riperton as a singer and Richard as a composer, songwriter and producer. “Music is really my life,” Maya told Interview magazine.

Riperton, a Chicago-native and the youngest of eight children, began studying opera as a child at Chicago’s Abraham Lincoln Center. But the talented soprano — who is best known for her five-and-a-half octave range — preferred soul and R&B, and began her professional career in the Motown group The Gems at just 14, according to The New York Times.

In the 1960s, Riperton provided backup vocals for Chess Records before joining the group Rotary Connection in 1966. The group toured with several famous musical acts, including The Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin, Santana, Sly and the Family Stone and Jefferson Airplane, The New York Times reported. But in 1970, Riperton launched her career as a solo artist — which is where she gained the most fame.

Maya’s early childhood was spent watching her mother perform on stage. “When I was a little girl, I would stand on the side of the stage and watch my mom singing out there in beautiful gowns,” she recalled to Interview magazine. “She was a diva in the most exquisite sense. Those are very vivid memories for me.”

Maya’s father Richard, meanwhile, put his musical talents to use behind the scenes. After studying music at Tulane University, he began his career as a songwriter at Chess Records in 1969 — where he ultimately began collaborating with Riperton, who he first met in a rock club in Chicago two years earlier, according to The New York Times. In addition to composing songs for Riperton’s first solo album, Richard got his start as a record producer when he and Stevie Wonder produced Riperton’s second (and most successful) album, Perfect Angel.

Richard has written and produced more than 500 songs throughout his career, for acts including The Temptations, Chaka Khan, A Tribe Called Quest, Tupac Shakur and Stevie Wonder. He also produced music for several feature films — including Weekend at Bernie's, Flatliners, Duets and The Black Dahlia — and started a music label with Michael Douglas called Third Stone Records.

Growing up, not everyone was aware of who Maya's parents were, as she shared during an April 2024 appearance on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast.

“It's interesting because my mom was a singer that not all my friends were that aware of at the time,” she said. “Everybody that knows who I am now knows that's my mom. But growing up, I didn't feel like she was a household name. I felt like she was special, yeah."

Riperton’s No. 1 hit “Lovin’ You” was originally a lullaby for Maya

One of Riperton’s most famous singles, the song “Lovin’ You,” was a family effort. It was written by Riperton and Richard together — and the melody began as a lullaby for Maya.

Richard first started writing the track in 1971, when the couple still lived in Chicago and before Maya was born.

“After Maya was born, I’d play the song all the time at the little house we had in Gainesville,” he told Mix Online. “One day while Minnie was cooking, she started to hum along, and she came up with the final melody. Then I wrote the lyrics and developed the bridge.”

Riperton and Richard recorded a demo of the song while living in Gainesville — but had no intentions of going public with the track. Instead, it became a lullaby for Maya, Richard revealed.

“We actually made a loop of that demo that we played for Maya while she was in her Swing-o-Matic,” he told Mix Online. “It would make her think her mother was there while Minnie and I slipped off for some private time.”

When Riperton eventually recorded the song for her 1973 album Perfect Angel, Maya was present in the studio with her mother, according to the album notes. In the unedited and album version of the song — which features Riperton’s famous whistle-high notes — Riperton can be heard singing “Maya” over and over again for her daughter.

“Lovin’ You” went on to become one of Riperton’s most successful tracks, landing the top spot on the Billboard Top 100. The lyrics of the song are even featured on her headstone, which has the inscription “lovin’ you is easy ‘cause you’re beautiful.”

Maya described her parents as “hippies”

With two musicians for parents, Maya has frequently described her mother and father as “hippies.” They both were unreligious, Maya told The New York Times, despite being raised Presbyterian and Jewish, respectively.

“I remember my mom not even saying ‘God bless you,' ” Maya told the Times. “She’d say, ‘Guh bless you,’ because she didn’t want us to say ‘God.’ ”

After Riperton signed with Epic Records in 1973, the family moved from Gainesville, Florida, to Los Angeles — and their home was frequently filled with fellow artists and bohemians, Maya told Entertainment Weekly. When Riperton would travel for performances, the whole family would tag along.

“We went on the road with my mom when we were babies,” Maya told EW. “She was like, ‘You guys are coming with me. I don’t like being away from you.’ ”

Touring became a family affair, with Richard playing guitar for Riperton and Maya and her older brother Marc watching from backstage. Maya even recalls the tooth fairy paying her an interesting visit while on the road with her parents.

“My brother and I spent a lot of time backstage making ourselves laugh, doing goofy stuff, eating weird food, losing teeth in hotels,” she told EW. “I got a casino chip when I lost a tooth, and I loved it.”

Riperton died from breast cancer in 1979 — two weeks before Maya’s 7th birthday

Riperton was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1976 at just 29 years old. The same year, she underwent a mastectomy and appeared on several national television shows speaking about her illness, according to The New York Times.

Though she was given only months to live following her diagnosis, Riperton didn’t let that stop her. The talented singer continued to tour over the next two years and recorded her fifth album. She also became an advocate for women with breast cancer, and was the first black woman to serve as the national educational chairman of the American Cancer Society. But on July 12, 1979 — two weeks before Maya’s seventh birthday — Riperton died from breast cancer at the age of 31.

Losing her mother at a young age — and in the public eye — wasn’t easy for Maya. She and her father and brother were featured on the cover of Jet  magazine two months after her mother’s death. Inside, there were details about and photographs from Maya’s birthday pool party, which was held shortly after her mother’s passing.

“It really didn’t help that it was a public experience,” Maya said of her mother’s death. “It was weird to grow up that way, thinking, I’m the kid whose mom died, and everybody knows it — or at least you feel like everybody knows it.”

Despite strangers and fans frequently offering their condolences, Maya found Riperton’s death too “painful” for her to discuss for decades.

“For many, many years, I couldn’t even touch this conversation,” she told The New York Times. “Up until very recently, it was still, like, a sting to talk about her.”

Richard was best friends with Bruce Paltrow

Richard and famed director Bruce Paltrow met and became best friends during their college days at Tulane University. Their friendship continued over the years — and extended to their children when they were both living in LA with their families.

Bruce’s daughter, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Maya both attended St. Augustine by the Sea School in Santa Monica, California. Thanks, in part, to their fathers’ friendship, the two became close as well — with Gwyneth even giving Maya a personal shout-out when she hosted Saturday Night Live years later.

“This week has been real extra-special to me because one of my best friends is on the show now, and I’m so proud of her,” Gwyneth said during her opening monologue. “She’s super-funny and talented, and I’m so glad she’s in the cast.”

Their friendship spilled over into their professional careers again in 2000, when Richard, Bruce, Maya and Gwyneth all collaborated together on the movie Duets. Bruce directed, Gwyneth starred and Richard and Maya served as the music supervisors on the film.

Riperton’s death inspired Maya to pursue comedy

Though the Riperton-Rudolph household was a musical one, Maya recalls admiring comedy from a young age. As a child, she would fake stomachaches to stay up late on Saturdays to watch Saturday Night Live, she shared with The Guardian — and she became fascinated with sketch comedy as a result.

“My dream since I was a little girl was to be on Saturday Night Live,” Maya told Interview magazine. “I was truly obsessed with Gilda Radner. I thought she was the funniest woman, and I believed that being a comedian was the most exciting thing you could be.”

She continued, “I used to do impressions of her when I was 5, because I had hair that looked like Roseanne Roseannadanna.”

But following her mother’s death, which left Maya “completely lost,” comedy also became a coping mechanism.

“Make no mistake, the comedy gene was in me before my mom died,” Maya told The Guardian. “But it was very much my manifesto after, because it was my only shield. You know, it was all that I had. The only thing to keep me from crying.”

In a full-circle moment, Maya channeled her late mother in a series of photos from when she hosted Saturday Night Live in March 2021. Maya recreated Riperton’s album covers from Perfect Angel and Adventuress in Paradise — paying an apparent tribute to the woman who inspired her comedy career.

Maya’s fourth child is named after her late mother

Maya shares four children with her partner, filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson. Their eldest daughter, Pearl, was born in October 2005. Four years later, a second daughter — named Lucille — was born. Then, in July 2011, the couple welcomed their first son, Jack. When their fourth child (and third daughter) was born in August 2013, Maya paid an apparent tribute to her late mother and named her daughter Minnie, the Los Angeles Times reported.  (Pearl also has Minnie as her middle name.)

But Riperton’s spirit lives on in her grandchildren in more ways than just her name: Maya reported that all four of her children are musically talented and natural performers.

Related: Maya Rudolph Talks About How 'Beautiful' It Was Acting with Her Kids in Licorice Pizza

“I think they have the gift of music and they don’t realize how great they are, so they kind of keep it to themselves,” she said about her four kids during a 2022 appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers. “But yes, I force them all to play, to have piano lessons.”

At home, Maya and Anderson’s children put on “living room shows” for their parents — and in 2022, Maya and her kids all appeared in Anderson’s film Licorice Pizza.

“That was actually a magical thing,” Maya said about working with her kids.

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