Little Richard was born Richard Wayne Penniman on December 5, 1932, in Macon, Georgia. He was the third of twelve children of Leva Mae (nee Stewart) and Charles "Bud" Penniman. His father was a church deacon who sold bootlegged moonshine on the side and owned a nightclub, the Tip In Inn.

Little Richard stated that as a child, he only played with girls and felt feminine, which was the source of jokes and homophobic ridicule at his expense. Caught wearing his mother's makeup and wardrobe at times, he was brutally punished by his father. He began having sexual encounters with boys by his teen years and also occasionally had sex with older women. Because of his effeminate mannerisms, his father kicked him out of their family home at 15. As Richard later explained in 2010, "my daddy put me out of the house. He said he wanted seven boys, and I had spoiled it, because I was gay." He first became involved in voyeurism in his early twenties, when a female friend would drive him around and pick up men who would allow him to watch them have sex in the backseat of cars. He was once arrested after a gas station attendant in Macon reported sexual activity in a car occupied by Little Richard and a couple. Cited on a sexual misconduct charge, he spent three days in jail and was temporarily banned from performing in Macon, Georgia.  During the early 1950s, Little Richard had appeared as a drag performer in various burlesque shows. By the time he entered the Chitlin' Circuit, he began using makeup regularly, influenced by Billy Wright, who recommended his brand of makeup to him, Pancake 31. Later, as he began experiencing success in the mid-1950s, he made members of his band use makeup as a means to gain entry into white clubs during performances. He later told a columnist, "I wore the make-up so that white men wouldn't think I was after the white girls. It made things easier for me, plus it was colorful too." In 2000, Richard told Jet magazine, "I figure if being called a sissy would make me famous, let them say what they want to." Though he was gay, Little Richard recalled female fans sending him naked photos and their phone numbers.  While attending Oakwood College, Richard recalled a male student exposed himself to him. After the incident was reported to the student's father, Little Richard withdrew from the college. In 1962, he was again arrested after he was caught spying on men urinating at men's toilets at a Trailways bus station in Long Beach, California. Richard returned to participating in sexual orgies after his return to secular music in the 1960s. In 1984, while he claimed homosexuality was "unnatural" and "contagious", he would tell Charles White that he was "omnisexual" after he was asked about his sex life. In 1995, Little Richard told Penthouse that he always knew he was gay, saying "I've been gay all my life". In 2007, Mojo Magazine referred to Little Richard as "bisexual".

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