WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.080 We're diving into a life today that it didn't 00:00:03.080 --> 00:00:05.980 just change comedy. It really changed what America 00:00:05.980 --> 00:00:09.509 was allowed to talk about. out loud yeah we are 00:00:09.509 --> 00:00:12.130 strapping in for a deep examination of richard 00:00:12.130 --> 00:00:14.929 pryor he was i mean you could argue he was the 00:00:14.929 --> 00:00:18.030 most powerful influential undeniably chaotic 00:00:18.030 --> 00:00:20.070 oh absolutely the most chaotic figure in the 00:00:20.070 --> 00:00:22.289 history of american performance our source materials 00:00:22.289 --> 00:00:25.649 here we've got biographies film studies historical 00:00:25.649 --> 00:00:28.609 documents they give us the full picture you know 00:00:28.609 --> 00:00:30.789 the light in the dark richard franklin lennox 00:00:30.789 --> 00:00:34.960 thomas pryor born in 1940. He just completely 00:00:34.960 --> 00:00:37.380 redefined the whole idea of stand -up comedy. 00:00:37.539 --> 00:00:40.600 But for Pryor, you know, mainstream comedy, it 00:00:40.600 --> 00:00:43.700 existed in this kind of safe, palatable space. 00:00:44.380 --> 00:00:46.880 Pryor bulldozed those boundaries. He didn't just 00:00:46.880 --> 00:00:50.100 tell jokes. He was doing this trenchant social 00:00:50.100 --> 00:00:52.920 observation using a storytelling style that was 00:00:52.920 --> 00:00:56.520 just utterly raw. Brutally honest. Brutally honest. 00:00:56.619 --> 00:00:58.630 And a lot of the time. deeply uncomfortable for 00:00:58.630 --> 00:00:59.829 the people watching. And when you look at his 00:00:59.829 --> 00:01:01.789 actual style, his wheelhouse, it's just this 00:01:01.789 --> 00:01:05.230 full spectrum of intensity. And it all came from 00:01:05.230 --> 00:01:07.489 his life. We're talking observational comedy, 00:01:07.629 --> 00:01:11.590 sure, but also this intensely dark black comedy, 00:01:11.689 --> 00:01:14.890 improv, sketch work, and especially that razor 00:01:14.890 --> 00:01:17.870 sharp racial humor. He put subjects on stage 00:01:17.870 --> 00:01:21.000 that were just... They were completely taboo 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:23.780 for decades. Oh, for sure. Exactly. I mean, he 00:01:23.780 --> 00:01:25.739 cackled African -American culture with a total 00:01:25.739 --> 00:01:28.400 insider's view, American politics, race relations, 00:01:28.540 --> 00:01:31.840 and then his own intense personal stuff. Yeah, 00:01:31.879 --> 00:01:34.620 that's where it got really raw. Sex, pop culture, 00:01:34.700 --> 00:01:37.420 and maybe most famously, self -deprecation and 00:01:37.420 --> 00:01:40.560 his struggles with heavy recreational drug use. 00:01:40.700 --> 00:01:42.980 He basically created confessional comedy. He 00:01:42.980 --> 00:01:45.000 really did. Everything he went through, the good, 00:01:45.099 --> 00:01:47.219 the horrifying, the mundane, it all went right 00:01:47.219 --> 00:01:49.750 into the microphone. And the industry. They recognized 00:01:49.750 --> 00:01:52.530 that genius pretty early and pretty often, even 00:01:52.530 --> 00:01:54.109 if they had no idea what to do with them sometimes. 00:01:54.670 --> 00:01:57.189 Just looking at his accolades alone tells you 00:01:57.189 --> 00:02:00.030 the scale of his impact. We're talking a primetime 00:02:00.030 --> 00:02:03.200 Emmy Award. five grammy awards including the 00:02:03.200 --> 00:02:05.299 one he got posthumously the lifetime achievement 00:02:05.299 --> 00:02:08.960 award in 2006 that grammy run is just staggering 00:02:08.960 --> 00:02:11.159 it really is yeah because it shows how quickly 00:02:11.159 --> 00:02:13.360 he connected with people after he you know made 00:02:13.360 --> 00:02:16.319 that big change right he won best comedy album 00:02:16.319 --> 00:02:19.340 for that nigger's crazy in 1975 an unbelievable 00:02:19.340 --> 00:02:22.020 title for the time unbelievable then he followed 00:02:22.020 --> 00:02:24.490 it with Is it something I said? Yeah. In 76. 00:02:25.009 --> 00:02:28.370 And Bicentennial Nigger in 77. Those three albums, 00:02:28.490 --> 00:02:30.430 boom, boom, boom, they captured this huge cultural 00:02:30.430 --> 00:02:33.210 shift. And he wasn't done. Not even close. Yeah. 00:02:33.289 --> 00:02:35.849 He came back and won again for the concert films, 00:02:36.009 --> 00:02:38.750 Richard Pryor, live on the Sunset Strip and Richard 00:02:38.750 --> 00:02:41.580 Pryor. Yeah. Here and now. in the early 80s. 00:02:41.580 --> 00:02:45.520 That three -year album run, 75 through 77, that 00:02:45.520 --> 00:02:47.860 wasn't just a commercial success. It was. It 00:02:47.860 --> 00:02:50.520 was a revolution. It was. Each one was another 00:02:50.520 --> 00:02:53.219 step deeper into the abyss of his own truth, 00:02:53.340 --> 00:02:55.379 and he delivered it with this fierce intelligence. 00:02:56.099 --> 00:02:58.599 But I think maybe the most enduring honor was 00:02:58.599 --> 00:03:01.120 winning the very first Kennedy Center Mark Twain 00:03:01.120 --> 00:03:04.340 Prize for American Humor in 1998. Getting the 00:03:04.340 --> 00:03:07.120 inaugural Mark Twain Prize, that just cemented 00:03:07.120 --> 00:03:09.659 everything. It placed him right in the historical. 00:03:09.900 --> 00:03:12.560 line of American truth tellers. It's a huge deal. 00:03:12.699 --> 00:03:14.719 It's a huge deal. It's like an acknowledgement 00:03:14.719 --> 00:03:18.479 that his brutally honest comedy, it went way 00:03:18.479 --> 00:03:21.039 beyond just jokes. It was a form of vital social 00:03:21.039 --> 00:03:24.280 commentary. It basically establishes him looking 00:03:24.280 --> 00:03:28.039 back as the founding father of the modern confessional 00:03:28.039 --> 00:03:30.219 style that really dominates stand -up today. 00:03:30.620 --> 00:03:33.439 So our mission in this deep dive is to unpack 00:03:33.439 --> 00:03:36.099 this whole narrative for you. We need to trace 00:03:36.099 --> 00:03:38.599 the path of his evolution, you know, starting 00:03:38.599 --> 00:03:41.560 from this deeply troubled kid, following his 00:03:41.560 --> 00:03:43.719 sudden controversial transformation into this 00:03:43.719 --> 00:03:46.879 massive cultural figure, and really trying to 00:03:46.879 --> 00:03:49.219 understand how his profound personal struggles 00:03:49.219 --> 00:03:51.919 informed and defined this genre -defining art. 00:03:52.159 --> 00:03:54.060 It's a study in transmutation, really. Yeah, 00:03:54.159 --> 00:03:57.000 turning pain into profound universal laughter. 00:03:57.539 --> 00:04:00.590 Okay, so... To really understand the fire and 00:04:00.590 --> 00:04:02.530 the intensity Richard Pryor brought to the stage, 00:04:02.650 --> 00:04:04.750 we have to start where we started, the environment 00:04:04.750 --> 00:04:06.990 that forged him. Absolutely. He was born in Peoria, 00:04:07.129 --> 00:04:09.969 Illinois, December 1940, and the setting of his 00:04:09.969 --> 00:04:11.810 childhood was about as far from conventional 00:04:11.810 --> 00:04:14.449 as you can possibly imagine. It is the definitive 00:04:14.449 --> 00:04:16.870 context for his entire life. I mean, he grew 00:04:16.870 --> 00:04:19.699 up, quite literally, inside a brothel. Run by 00:04:19.699 --> 00:04:21.459 his grandmother. Run by his grandmother, Marie 00:04:21.459 --> 00:04:24.100 Carter. This wasn't just a tough home. This was 00:04:24.100 --> 00:04:26.860 a world of desperation, of commerce, and real 00:04:26.860 --> 00:04:29.920 danger. And the family context itself is, it's 00:04:29.920 --> 00:04:33.060 just staggering. His mother, Gertrude L. Thomas, 00:04:33.379 --> 00:04:36.379 she was a prostitute and she struggled with alcoholism. 00:04:36.519 --> 00:04:40.250 And his father. Leroy Buck Carter Pryor. He was 00:04:40.250 --> 00:04:42.509 a former boxer who also worked as a hustler and 00:04:42.509 --> 00:04:44.689 a pimp in that same environment. So he's just 00:04:44.689 --> 00:04:47.290 surrounded by people living on the absolute edge. 00:04:47.410 --> 00:04:49.990 So it is normal. And he was primarily raised 00:04:49.990 --> 00:04:52.610 by Marie Carter, his grandmother, who the sources 00:04:52.610 --> 00:04:56.470 describe as this tall, imposing and profoundly 00:04:56.470 --> 00:04:59.389 violent woman. Wow. She gave him routine and 00:04:59.389 --> 00:05:01.230 severe beatings. And the heartbreaking irony 00:05:01.230 --> 00:05:03.750 here is that she would beat him specifically 00:05:03.750 --> 00:05:06.350 for showing any of his eccentricities. The very 00:05:06.350 --> 00:05:08.139 things that. made him a genius later on. The 00:05:08.139 --> 00:05:10.480 very creative observational qualities that would 00:05:10.480 --> 00:05:12.639 make him world famous, it was like she was trying 00:05:12.639 --> 00:05:14.819 to beat the artist right out of the child. And 00:05:14.819 --> 00:05:17.639 this unstable traumatic environment, it led to 00:05:17.639 --> 00:05:20.779 some severe early trauma that he would later 00:05:20.779 --> 00:05:23.519 mine for his most honest material. I mean, he 00:05:23.519 --> 00:05:25.939 was sexually abused at age 7. Yeah. And spelled 00:05:25.939 --> 00:05:29.180 from school at age 14. When you look at the origins 00:05:29.180 --> 00:05:31.839 of his comedy, that specific background, being 00:05:31.839 --> 00:05:34.740 raised by a violent matriarch in a brothel, surrounded 00:05:34.740 --> 00:05:37.180 by constant struggle, That is the wellspring. 00:05:37.399 --> 00:05:40.120 He had no choice but to be tough. And observant. 00:05:40.420 --> 00:05:42.920 And brutally honest about the hypocrisy he saw 00:05:42.920 --> 00:05:45.540 all around him. And that background, that conflict 00:05:45.540 --> 00:05:48.160 and volatility, it followed him right into adulthood. 00:05:48.519 --> 00:05:51.339 After he got expelled, he served a stint in the 00:05:51.339 --> 00:05:54.959 U .S. Army from 58 to 60. But service is a strong 00:05:54.959 --> 00:05:57.699 word. He spent almost the entire time incarcerated. 00:05:58.160 --> 00:06:00.220 In Army prison? Wait, almost the whole time? 00:06:00.259 --> 00:06:02.500 How does that happen? What led to that? The sources 00:06:02.500 --> 00:06:05.540 detail this. This deeply disturbing incident 00:06:05.540 --> 00:06:07.480 that happened when he was stationed in West Germany. 00:06:07.660 --> 00:06:10.819 Yeah. The flashpoint was a white soldier who 00:06:10.819 --> 00:06:14.560 was overly amused, laughing way too hard, the 00:06:14.560 --> 00:06:16.759 source implies, at the racially charged scenes 00:06:16.759 --> 00:06:19.420 in the movie Imitation of Life. Oh, wow. And 00:06:19.420 --> 00:06:22.399 this just triggered this visceral, furious response 00:06:22.399 --> 00:06:25.279 in young Pryor. The intensity of that reaction 00:06:25.279 --> 00:06:28.360 must have been incredible. It was. Pryor and 00:06:28.360 --> 00:06:30.220 several other black soldiers, they assaulted 00:06:30.220 --> 00:06:33.180 the white soldier, they beat him and they stabbed 00:06:33.180 --> 00:06:36.259 him. Fortunately, the soldier survived. But this 00:06:36.259 --> 00:06:38.920 tells you everything about the raw, explosive 00:06:38.920 --> 00:06:41.480 anger and the deep -seated sense of injustice 00:06:41.480 --> 00:06:43.899 that Pryor was carrying around. Before he found 00:06:43.899 --> 00:06:46.360 a way to channel it on stage. Exactly. Before 00:06:46.360 --> 00:06:48.939 he found his voice on stage, that anger just 00:06:48.939 --> 00:06:51.100 came out physically and it led to his incarceration. 00:06:51.899 --> 00:06:54.240 This is the volatility that's just bubbling right 00:06:54.240 --> 00:06:56.600 under the surface of the man who would later 00:06:56.600 --> 00:06:58.800 make millions of people laugh. It's a remarkable 00:06:58.800 --> 00:07:01.560 detail. It's also worth noting, though, that 00:07:01.560 --> 00:07:04.379 amid all this turmoil, the violence, the arrests, 00:07:04.519 --> 00:07:07.259 the prison time, he was a member of Henry Brown 00:07:07.259 --> 00:07:10.759 Lodge No. 22 in Peoria. Prince Hall Freemason. 00:07:10.819 --> 00:07:13.540 Yeah, which is this fascinating structural detail 00:07:13.540 --> 00:07:15.620 for someone who would later become this champion 00:07:15.620 --> 00:07:17.300 of the counterculture. It's like he had these 00:07:17.300 --> 00:07:20.019 moments where he was seeking order and structure, 00:07:20.139 --> 00:07:22.779 even while his love was just fundamentally chaotic. 00:07:23.139 --> 00:07:27.579 And moving into his early career. It's so easy 00:07:27.579 --> 00:07:30.420 to forget that the Richard Pryor who showed up 00:07:30.420 --> 00:07:33.420 in New York City in 1963 was not the Pryor we 00:07:33.420 --> 00:07:36.339 remember at all. Not at all. His initial comedic 00:07:36.339 --> 00:07:38.500 style was super polished. It was middle brow 00:07:38.500 --> 00:07:41.259 and it was consciously influenced by the giants 00:07:41.259 --> 00:07:43.699 of the past. People like Charlie Chaplin, Jackie 00:07:43.699 --> 00:07:46.939 Gleason, Red Skelton. And crucially, Bill Cosby. 00:07:47.060 --> 00:07:49.240 And crucially, Bill Cosby. He was trying to fit 00:07:49.240 --> 00:07:51.800 that mold. He was performing alongside this whole 00:07:51.800 --> 00:07:54.459 burgeoning folk and literary scene, you know, 00:07:54.459 --> 00:07:56.420 people like Bob Dylan and Woody Allen. He was 00:07:56.420 --> 00:07:59.399 trying to be clean and acceptable, but the pressure 00:07:59.399 --> 00:08:02.000 inside must have been just immense. And there's 00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:04.740 that one incredible... humanizing anecdote from 00:08:04.740 --> 00:08:07.740 those early days it involves nina simone at the 00:08:07.740 --> 00:08:09.860 village gate right he was opening for her he 00:08:09.860 --> 00:08:12.259 was opening for her and he was so paralyzed by 00:08:12.259 --> 00:08:14.319 what the sources say was severe performance anxiety 00:08:14.319 --> 00:08:18.060 that she recalled him shaking like he had malaria 00:08:18.060 --> 00:08:20.519 he was literally shaking himself apart backstage 00:08:20.519 --> 00:08:23.199 the image is just it's almost unbearable this 00:08:23.199 --> 00:08:25.620 future genius terrified of the stage so what 00:08:25.620 --> 00:08:28.660 did she do she had to physically intervene the 00:08:28.660 --> 00:08:30.420 story goes that she put her arms around him in 00:08:30.420 --> 00:08:33.679 the dark backstage and she just She rocked him 00:08:33.679 --> 00:08:36.419 like a baby to calm him down. Wow. Just to make 00:08:36.419 --> 00:08:38.320 sure he was steady enough to actually walk on 00:08:38.320 --> 00:08:41.600 stage. And that intimate moment, the future greatest 00:08:41.600 --> 00:08:43.740 comedian of his generation being comforted by 00:08:43.740 --> 00:08:46.460 a musical legend, it just shows you how profound 00:08:46.460 --> 00:08:49.240 his internal vulnerability was before he finally 00:08:49.240 --> 00:08:50.940 broke through and found the voice that embraced 00:08:50.940 --> 00:08:53.480 all that fear and chaos instead of suppressing 00:08:53.480 --> 00:08:57.019 it. That moment of sheer terror backstage, it's 00:08:57.019 --> 00:09:00.059 just the perfect backdrop for the pivotal transformation 00:09:00.059 --> 00:09:02.639 that came next. Absolutely. He was trying to 00:09:02.639 --> 00:09:05.960 be this clean, palatable Richard Pryor, right? 00:09:06.019 --> 00:09:08.440 And that persona was getting him regular spots 00:09:08.440 --> 00:09:11.340 on huge TV variety shows. We're talking The Ed 00:09:11.340 --> 00:09:13.639 Sullivan Show, The Merv Griffin Show, The Tonight 00:09:13.639 --> 00:09:15.779 Show starring Johnny Carson. He was on the exact 00:09:15.779 --> 00:09:18.759 trajectory to become like... Bill Cosby 2 .0. 00:09:18.820 --> 00:09:20.820 But that trajectory just shattered in September 00:09:20.820 --> 00:09:23.299 1967. This is the moment at the Aladdin Hotel 00:09:23.299 --> 00:09:26.519 in Las Vegas that Pryor himself called his epiphany 00:09:26.519 --> 00:09:29.220 in his autobiography. Right. He walked on the 00:09:29.220 --> 00:09:32.179 stage, saw the crowd and just felt completely 00:09:32.179 --> 00:09:35.980 alienated. And the story is that Dean Martin, 00:09:36.120 --> 00:09:38.120 you know, the ultimate definition of mainstream 00:09:38.120 --> 00:09:40.440 cool, was sitting right there in the audience. 00:09:40.639 --> 00:09:44.269 And he didn't just bomb. He quit. Mid -set. He 00:09:44.269 --> 00:09:45.769 grabbed the microphone and yelled the famous 00:09:45.769 --> 00:09:48.070 line, what the fuck am I doing here? And walked 00:09:48.070 --> 00:09:51.309 right off stage, leaving the audience and his 00:09:51.309 --> 00:09:53.350 entire career trajectory just hanging there. 00:09:53.409 --> 00:09:55.710 Oh, man. That was the absolute line in the sand. 00:09:56.169 --> 00:09:59.610 And the change was immediate and total. The sources 00:09:59.610 --> 00:10:01.990 confirmed that right after that walk -off, he 00:10:01.990 --> 00:10:04.529 instantly started using heavy profanity in his 00:10:04.529 --> 00:10:07.429 act. He fundamentally shifted his subject matter, 00:10:07.509 --> 00:10:09.610 his language. Including the immediate adoption 00:10:09.610 --> 00:10:12.960 of the N -word. Yep. His 1968 debut album, which 00:10:12.960 --> 00:10:15.059 is just called Richard Pryor, it actually captures 00:10:15.059 --> 00:10:16.960 this transition period. You're basically listening 00:10:16.960 --> 00:10:19.600 to the sound of him deliberately destroying the 00:10:19.600 --> 00:10:21.539 Bill Cosby mole that had been trapping him. And 00:10:21.539 --> 00:10:24.159 that change just accelerated in 1969 when he 00:10:24.159 --> 00:10:27.279 moved to Berkeley, California. That move geographically 00:10:27.279 --> 00:10:30.720 was so crucial. He immersed himself in the counterculture 00:10:30.720 --> 00:10:32.980 movement. He started connecting with radical 00:10:32.980 --> 00:10:35.320 figures like Huey P. Newton. One of the founders 00:10:35.320 --> 00:10:37.620 of the Black Panther Party. Exactly. And the 00:10:37.620 --> 00:10:40.960 influential writer Ishmael Reed. This political 00:10:40.960 --> 00:10:43.500 and cultural immersion just fueled this creative 00:10:43.500 --> 00:10:46.720 explosion in the 1970s. In the 70s is when he 00:10:46.720 --> 00:10:49.480 truly breaks into Hollywood, not just as a performer, 00:10:49.519 --> 00:10:52.259 but as a writer and a real creative force. Yeah. 00:10:52.340 --> 00:10:55.779 He co -wrote for major TV hits like Sanford and 00:10:55.779 --> 00:10:58.529 Son and The Flip Wilson Show. And he shared an 00:10:58.529 --> 00:11:02.009 Emmy for his writing on a 1973 Lily Tomlin special, 00:11:02.210 --> 00:11:04.590 which shows you that his writing was sharp enough 00:11:04.590 --> 00:11:07.110 to be celebrated by the establishment, even if 00:11:07.110 --> 00:11:09.110 his standup was way too hot for them to handle. 00:11:09.230 --> 00:11:11.210 And at the same time, his film career was just 00:11:11.210 --> 00:11:13.570 exploding. It really showcased his versatility, 00:11:13.789 --> 00:11:15.610 which I think people often forget because they 00:11:15.610 --> 00:11:17.990 focus so much on his standup. That's so true. 00:11:18.149 --> 00:11:20.769 You see him in serious dramas like Lady Sings 00:11:20.769 --> 00:11:23.710 the Blues in 72, comedies like Uptown Saturday 00:11:23.710 --> 00:11:27.149 Night in 74. The huge buddy cop hits Silver Street. 00:11:27.210 --> 00:11:31.110 The start of his famous collaboration with Gene 00:11:31.110 --> 00:11:34.320 Wilder. Right. And then the incredibly gritty 00:11:34.320 --> 00:11:38.120 and serious labor drama Blue Collar in 78 and 00:11:38.120 --> 00:11:40.879 even a family friendly cameo in the Muppet movie 00:11:40.879 --> 00:11:43.940 in 79. It's a portfolio that just proves he wasn't 00:11:43.940 --> 00:11:46.059 just a comedian. Right. He was a serious actor 00:11:46.059 --> 00:11:49.120 who could handle incredibly diverse roles. OK, 00:11:49.200 --> 00:11:51.980 let's unpack one of the most famous and historically 00:11:51.980 --> 00:11:55.580 contested stories from this era. Blazing Saddles. 00:11:56.159 --> 00:11:59.519 Pryor was a co -writer for the 1974 Mel Brooks 00:11:59.519 --> 00:12:02.740 satirical Western and the source. all confirm 00:12:02.740 --> 00:12:04.779 he was originally supposed to play the lead role 00:12:04.779 --> 00:12:07.159 of Burt, the Black Sheriff. And this is where 00:12:07.159 --> 00:12:09.580 you see that intense friction between Pryor's 00:12:09.580 --> 00:12:12.299 talent and Hollywood's fear. Yeah. What's so 00:12:12.299 --> 00:12:14.259 fascinating here are the starkly conflicting 00:12:14.259 --> 00:12:16.500 accounts of why he didn't end up starring in 00:12:16.500 --> 00:12:19.159 it. Right. So Mel Brooks, for years, has consistently 00:12:19.159 --> 00:12:21.399 said that the studio executives, specifically 00:12:21.399 --> 00:12:24.240 at Warner Brothers, they vetoed Pryor's casting. 00:12:24.399 --> 00:12:26.360 And the reason Brooks always gave. Drug arrests. 00:12:26.620 --> 00:12:28.759 And the fact that it was difficult, or maybe 00:12:28.759 --> 00:12:31.039 even impossible, to get him insured for the film. 00:12:31.210 --> 00:12:33.309 Right. That's the Brooks narrative. However, 00:12:33.470 --> 00:12:36.230 our sources explicitly point out a pretty critical 00:12:36.230 --> 00:12:38.590 flaw in that version of events, which no studio 00:12:38.590 --> 00:12:40.889 executive from that time has ever corroborated 00:12:40.889 --> 00:12:43.470 Brooks's claim, not even after Pryor's death. 00:12:43.690 --> 00:12:46.710 So that leaves this significant vacuum in the 00:12:46.710 --> 00:12:49.409 official explanation. And that vacuum gets filled 00:12:49.409 --> 00:12:52.679 by a pretty powerful counter -narrative. The 00:12:52.679 --> 00:12:54.519 director, Michael Schultz, who knew everybody 00:12:54.519 --> 00:12:57.659 involved, he claimed that Brooks chased him out 00:12:57.659 --> 00:13:00.200 because Brooks wanted total creative credit for 00:13:00.200 --> 00:13:02.919 the movie. Right. The anecdote goes that Brooks 00:13:02.919 --> 00:13:05.360 had seemingly promised Pryor the role was his, 00:13:05.539 --> 00:13:08.259 only for Pryor to be completely blindsided when 00:13:08.259 --> 00:13:10.159 he learned from Cleavon Little, the actor who 00:13:10.159 --> 00:13:12.860 got the part, that the casting was done without 00:13:12.860 --> 00:13:15.559 him. It just highlights that even when Pryor 00:13:15.559 --> 00:13:17.659 was at the absolute peak of his writing power 00:13:17.659 --> 00:13:19.919 and brilliance, Hollywood's structure was just 00:13:19.919 --> 00:13:22.399 incredibly tough and often betraying for him 00:13:22.399 --> 00:13:24.919 to navigate. So was it racism? Was it liability? 00:13:25.279 --> 00:13:27.840 Was it creative ego? The sources give us compelling 00:13:27.840 --> 00:13:30.279 evidence for all three, but the result was the 00:13:30.279 --> 00:13:32.320 same. He lost the lead role in one of the most 00:13:32.320 --> 00:13:34.899 important cultural satires of the 70s, a film 00:13:34.899 --> 00:13:37.000 he helped create. And that battle wasn't just 00:13:37.000 --> 00:13:38.820 with Hollywood studios. It was in the record 00:13:38.820 --> 00:13:41.799 industry, too. all driven by these legal fights 00:13:41.799 --> 00:13:44.419 over rights and exploitation. Yeah, so Pryor 00:13:44.419 --> 00:13:46.759 signed with this independent label, Laff Records, 00:13:47.000 --> 00:13:50.000 in 1970. They specialized in comedy, but then 00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:52.500 later he moved to major labels like Stax and 00:13:52.500 --> 00:13:54.740 Warner Bros. But Laff Records refused to let 00:13:54.740 --> 00:13:57.419 go. After Pryor broke through with his massive 00:13:57.419 --> 00:14:01.100 1974 album, That Nigger's Crazy, Laff claimed 00:14:01.100 --> 00:14:04.220 they still owned the rights to his early recordings. 00:14:04.440 --> 00:14:07.220 And they used that. Oh. They implemented a specific 00:14:07.220 --> 00:14:09.539 exploitative tactic that lasted for almost a 00:14:09.539 --> 00:14:12.299 decade. Which was what? To fully capitalize on 00:14:12.299 --> 00:14:15.139 his now massive success with Warner Bros. Laff 00:14:15.139 --> 00:14:17.659 just kept releasing older, previously unissued 00:14:17.659 --> 00:14:20.580 material. Stuff recorded between like... 68 and 00:14:20.580 --> 00:14:24.100 73. So raw, rough material that he probably never 00:14:24.100 --> 00:14:26.799 intended for mass consumption. Exactly. And they 00:14:26.799 --> 00:14:28.580 made sure the audience would be confused enough 00:14:28.580 --> 00:14:30.879 to buy it. The sources note they would deceptively 00:14:30.879 --> 00:14:33.360 market these old albums by tying the cover art 00:14:33.360 --> 00:14:35.899 and the titles thematically to whatever his current 00:14:35.899 --> 00:14:38.399 hit movie was. So for instance, when his big 00:14:38.399 --> 00:14:41.600 film Stir Crazy was a hit. Laff releases an old 00:14:41.600 --> 00:14:45.029 album and calls it insane. It was a blatant and 00:14:45.029 --> 00:14:48.029 successful attempt to confuse the audience, you 00:14:48.029 --> 00:14:50.490 know, draw in new fans who were expecting the 00:14:50.490 --> 00:14:53.149 polish of his modern work, but instead got his 00:14:53.149 --> 00:14:55.750 older, rougher stand -up. It was a decades -long 00:14:55.750 --> 00:14:58.370 legal battle over who owned Richard Pryor's voice, 00:14:58.570 --> 00:15:00.610 and Laff was profiting immensely from his past. 00:15:00.950 --> 00:15:04.029 At the same time, he's fighting censorship on 00:15:04.029 --> 00:15:07.289 live television. His 1975 appearance as the guest 00:15:07.289 --> 00:15:09.009 host on Saturday Night Live, I mean, he was the 00:15:09.009 --> 00:15:11.519 first black host. And it's still one of the most 00:15:11.519 --> 00:15:13.960 talked about episodes in the show's history because 00:15:13.960 --> 00:15:16.899 of that famous and intensely controversial word 00:15:16.899 --> 00:15:19.940 association skit with Chevy Chase. That skit 00:15:19.940 --> 00:15:22.440 just, it pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable 00:15:22.440 --> 00:15:24.759 on network TV farther than anything at the time. 00:15:24.799 --> 00:15:27.220 The raw tension in that sketch where they're 00:15:27.220 --> 00:15:29.960 trading racial epithets, it forced the network's 00:15:29.960 --> 00:15:31.740 hand. And the restriction they put on Pryor was 00:15:31.740 --> 00:15:34.600 monumental. He became one of only three SNL hosts 00:15:34.600 --> 00:15:36.799 ever to be subjected to a five second delay. 00:15:37.039 --> 00:15:39.980 Think about that. Think about the fear the network 00:15:39.980 --> 00:15:42.419 must have felt about the most honest man in America 00:15:42.419 --> 00:15:45.360 live on stage. They needed a censor ready to 00:15:45.360 --> 00:15:48.159 hit a button five seconds before whatever explosive, 00:15:48.559 --> 00:15:51.440 unscripted truth Pryor might drop could reach 00:15:51.440 --> 00:15:53.759 the audience. He tried again with his own variety 00:15:53.759 --> 00:15:56.779 show, The Richard Pryor Show, on NBC in 1977. 00:15:57.419 --> 00:16:00.500 He tried to bring that raw sensibility to a network 00:16:00.500 --> 00:16:03.480 format. And it was a disaster. For the network, 00:16:03.580 --> 00:16:05.769 at least. It was canceled after only four episodes. 00:16:06.009 --> 00:16:08.169 The content was just too subversive for late 00:16:08.169 --> 00:16:11.950 70s TV. He tackled truly groundbreaking stuff. 00:16:12.230 --> 00:16:14.830 He had a skit about the first black president. 00:16:15.009 --> 00:16:17.909 He lampooned racism on the sinking Titanic. He 00:16:17.909 --> 00:16:19.950 even did a serious non -comedy skit about gun 00:16:19.950 --> 00:16:22.190 violence. Pryor famously said that while the 00:16:22.190 --> 00:16:24.710 network offered him 10 episodes, he decided he'd 00:16:24.710 --> 00:16:26.330 said everything he wanted to say in those four. 00:16:26.509 --> 00:16:29.009 Right. The takeaway here is that Richard Pryor 00:16:29.009 --> 00:16:31.210 was fundamentally unwilling to compromise his 00:16:31.210 --> 00:16:34.570 material for any censor. network or studio contract 00:16:34.570 --> 00:16:38.629 he put his authenticity above profitability again 00:16:38.629 --> 00:16:41.850 and again so if that decade was defined by confrontation 00:16:41.850 --> 00:16:44.210 with all these external boundaries hollywood 00:16:44.210 --> 00:16:48.070 tv record labels it ended with a major internal 00:16:48.070 --> 00:16:52.129 confrontation in 1979 at the absolute height 00:16:52.129 --> 00:16:55.669 of his success and fame prior visited Kenya. 00:16:55.789 --> 00:16:58.330 And that trip turned out to be this deeply transformative 00:16:58.330 --> 00:17:00.990 spiritual and cultural experience for him. Yeah. 00:17:01.110 --> 00:17:03.330 Upon returning to the United States from Africa, 00:17:03.490 --> 00:17:06.230 he swore this incredibly consequential public 00:17:06.230 --> 00:17:08.930 vow. He said he would never use the word nigger 00:17:08.930 --> 00:17:11.730 in his standup routine ever again. This was a 00:17:11.730 --> 00:17:14.700 public renunciation of a word that. as controversial 00:17:14.700 --> 00:17:17.920 as it was, had been a signature, defining, potent 00:17:17.920 --> 00:17:20.779 part of his breakthrough act. It signaled that 00:17:20.779 --> 00:17:22.500 the confrontation with the world had evolved 00:17:22.500 --> 00:17:25.039 into a confrontation with himself and his own 00:17:25.039 --> 00:17:27.759 language. The 1980s started with this almost 00:17:27.759 --> 00:17:30.599 perfect duality in Richard Pryor's life. You 00:17:30.599 --> 00:17:32.380 have his greatest financial success followed 00:17:32.380 --> 00:17:34.740 almost immediately by his most profound personal 00:17:34.740 --> 00:17:37.519 crisis. The success came in 1980. He became the 00:17:37.519 --> 00:17:39.559 first Black actor to earn a million dollars for 00:17:39.559 --> 00:17:42.619 a single film. That was for Stir Crazy. his huge 00:17:42.619 --> 00:17:45.000 second movie with Gene Wilder. He had finally 00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:47.319 achieved that undeniable top -tier bankability 00:17:47.319 --> 00:17:50.019 in Hollywood. But just months later, on June 00:17:50.019 --> 00:17:53.740 9th, 1980, the crisis hits. This is the infamous 00:17:53.740 --> 00:17:57.319 freebasing incident. While he was on this intense, 00:17:57.420 --> 00:18:01.799 long freebasing binge, Pryor doused himself in 00:18:01.799 --> 00:18:05.539 151 -proof rum and set himself on fire. We should 00:18:05.539 --> 00:18:07.740 probably note there is a slight contradiction 00:18:07.740 --> 00:18:10.480 in the sources about the cause. While a public 00:18:10.480 --> 00:18:13.759 narrative and priors later on suggested self 00:18:13.759 --> 00:18:16.579 -immolation, the Los Angeles police at the time 00:18:16.579 --> 00:18:19.000 suggested the burns might have been from an explosion 00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:21.779 of a drug mixture being prepared rather than 00:18:21.779 --> 00:18:24.059 an intentional act. Regardless of the specific 00:18:24.059 --> 00:18:26.940 cause, the result was horrific. Oh, absolutely. 00:18:27.259 --> 00:18:30.079 He ran down Parthenia Street, engulfed in flames 00:18:30.079 --> 00:18:32.680 until police managed to subdue him. He suffered 00:18:32.680 --> 00:18:34.779 second and third degree burns over half his body. 00:18:34.880 --> 00:18:38.079 And he spent six agonizing weeks recovering at 00:18:38.079 --> 00:18:40.559 the Grossman Burn Center. His widow, Jennifer 00:18:40.559 --> 00:18:43.000 Lee, she captured the context of it by describing 00:18:43.000 --> 00:18:44.960 how the drug had moved in and it had become his 00:18:44.960 --> 00:18:46.579 lover, which is why she had to move out before 00:18:46.579 --> 00:18:48.680 it happened. What's so unique about Pryor, though, 00:18:48.720 --> 00:18:51.880 is his almost superhuman ability to immediately 00:18:52.299 --> 00:18:54.500 translate this life -altering near -fatal trauma 00:18:54.500 --> 00:18:57.380 into comedy. He didn't hide from it at all. He 00:18:57.380 --> 00:19:00.700 processed it publicly. In his 1982 special Richard 00:19:00.700 --> 00:19:03.940 Pryor, live on the Sunset Strip, he incorporated 00:19:03.940 --> 00:19:06.740 the entire incident into his act. He took the 00:19:06.740 --> 00:19:08.859 most horrific thing that ever happened to him 00:19:08.859 --> 00:19:11.670 and distilled it into a joke. He claimed the 00:19:11.670 --> 00:19:14.509 explosion was caused by dunking a cookie into 00:19:14.509 --> 00:19:17.269 a glass of low -fat pasteurized milk. And he 00:19:17.269 --> 00:19:19.990 ended that deeply uncomfortable but undeniably 00:19:19.990 --> 00:19:22.670 hilarious bit by making fun of the media obsession. 00:19:23.109 --> 00:19:25.670 He holds up a lit match and says, what's that? 00:19:25.829 --> 00:19:28.490 Richard Pryor running down the street. That willingness 00:19:28.490 --> 00:19:32.160 to process. profound, life -threatening suffering 00:19:32.160 --> 00:19:35.299 in real time on a world stage. I mean, that is 00:19:35.299 --> 00:19:38.000 the essence of his genius. His recovery led to 00:19:38.000 --> 00:19:40.299 this massive professional expansion, but also 00:19:40.299 --> 00:19:43.339 a shift in his artistic direction. In 1983, he 00:19:43.339 --> 00:19:46.140 signs this groundbreaking, monumental five -year, 00:19:46.259 --> 00:19:48.900 $40 million contract with Columbia Pictures. 00:19:49.180 --> 00:19:50.940 And he starts his own production company, Indigo 00:19:50.940 --> 00:19:53.339 Productions. This high stakes deal, it guaranteed 00:19:53.339 --> 00:19:55.539 him incredible wealth, but it led to this tangible 00:19:55.539 --> 00:19:58.359 shift in his movies. He moved toward what critics 00:19:58.359 --> 00:20:01.299 and our sources call softer, more formulaic films. 00:20:01.480 --> 00:20:04.779 Yeah. He earned an astonishing $4 million for 00:20:04.779 --> 00:20:07.319 his supporting role in Superman III in 1983. 00:20:07.759 --> 00:20:10.079 And other big studio projects followed, like 00:20:10.079 --> 00:20:13.000 Brewster's Millions in 85 and his later movies 00:20:13.000 --> 00:20:16.119 with Gene Wilder, like See No Evil, Hear No Evil 00:20:16.119 --> 00:20:19.000 in 89. So wait, he gets this huge $40 million 00:20:19.000 --> 00:20:21.920 deal, the biggest any black actor had ever seen. 00:20:22.019 --> 00:20:24.619 But the sources are suggesting that the quality 00:20:24.619 --> 00:20:27.220 of his work actually declined. Was the money 00:20:27.220 --> 00:20:30.700 actively compromising the art? That's the tragic 00:20:30.700 --> 00:20:32.900 trade -off that really defined the 80s for Pryor. 00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:35.160 The freedom the money gave him also came with 00:20:35.160 --> 00:20:37.380 the artistic compromise that the major studios 00:20:37.380 --> 00:20:39.740 demanded. He was still brilliant, but he was 00:20:39.740 --> 00:20:41.319 fitting into their molds instead of breaking 00:20:41.319 --> 00:20:43.500 them. However, the source material does point 00:20:43.500 --> 00:20:46.730 out one crucial exception. The semi -autobiographical 00:20:46.730 --> 00:20:49.890 film Jojo Dancer, Your Life is Calling in 1986. 00:20:50.410 --> 00:20:52.549 Which he wrote and directed himself. Exactly. 00:20:52.710 --> 00:20:55.450 That film, inspired by the Freebasing incident, 00:20:55.710 --> 00:20:58.109 it really channeled that earlier raw energy. 00:20:58.390 --> 00:21:01.009 It suggests that the drive to process his trauma 00:21:01.009 --> 00:21:03.289 never fully left him, even if he was spending 00:21:03.289 --> 00:21:05.970 most of his time making formulate comedies. He 00:21:05.970 --> 00:21:08.509 even tried for this total image overhaul with 00:21:08.509 --> 00:21:12.069 Pryor's plays in 1984. a children's show on CBS 00:21:12.069 --> 00:21:15.170 with puppets from Sid and Marty Kroft. But even 00:21:15.170 --> 00:21:17.710 on a kid's show, he couldn't completely sanitize 00:21:17.710 --> 00:21:20.690 his material. He chose to deal with more sobering, 00:21:20.690 --> 00:21:23.490 serious issues than, say, Sesame Street, and 00:21:23.490 --> 00:21:25.970 that ultimately led to it getting canceled really 00:21:25.970 --> 00:21:28.470 quickly. And this friction between the chaotic 00:21:28.470 --> 00:21:30.769 artist and the commercial need to be a bankable 00:21:30.769 --> 00:21:33.369 star, it also affected his reputation on set. 00:21:33.529 --> 00:21:36.289 Right. As his star power grew, so did his reputation 00:21:36.289 --> 00:21:38.349 for being exceptionally demanding, disrespectful, 00:21:38.809 --> 00:21:41.529 and difficult during filming. Gene Wilder's testimony 00:21:41.529 --> 00:21:43.970 in his autobiography, Kiss Me Like a Stranger, 00:21:44.130 --> 00:21:47.170 it paints a really clear picture of this. Wilder 00:21:47.170 --> 00:21:49.089 said Pryor was frequently late during the filming 00:21:49.089 --> 00:21:51.609 of Stir Crazy and developed this grandiose star 00:21:51.609 --> 00:21:54.049 complex. Demanding a helicopter to commute to 00:21:54.049 --> 00:21:55.730 the set. Yeah, just because he was the biggest 00:21:55.730 --> 00:21:58.349 star. But the truly critical anecdote, the one 00:21:58.349 --> 00:22:00.710 that speaks volumes about the psychological tightrope 00:22:00.710 --> 00:22:03.869 Pryor, was walking balancing real trauma, racial 00:22:03.869 --> 00:22:06.430 sensitivity, and leveraging those dynamics for 00:22:06.430 --> 00:22:09.410 gain. is the famous fruit incident the watermelon 00:22:09.410 --> 00:22:12.230 anecdote right during a lunch break on the set 00:22:12.230 --> 00:22:14.730 of stir crazy a crew member threw a piece of 00:22:14.730 --> 00:22:17.750 watermelon like an impromptu frisbee and it landed 00:22:17.750 --> 00:22:20.690 at prior's feet and prior just erupted walked 00:22:20.690 --> 00:22:23.069 off set announced he was quitting show business 00:22:23.069 --> 00:22:26.730 entirely citing the deep historical racial significance 00:22:26.730 --> 00:22:29.109 of the watermelon stereotype and the sources 00:22:29.109 --> 00:22:32.259 suggest this was a moment where real justified 00:22:32.259 --> 00:22:35.200 outrage over a racial slight just got inextricably 00:22:35.200 --> 00:22:38.400 tangled up with professional ambition. The discussion 00:22:38.400 --> 00:22:40.940 notes that Pryor may have been actively using 00:22:40.940 --> 00:22:43.380 these allegations of onset racism, whether they 00:22:43.380 --> 00:22:46.200 were genuine or perceived, to force the producer's 00:22:46.200 --> 00:22:48.380 hands. To get a bigger salary or a better working 00:22:48.380 --> 00:22:50.799 condition. Exactly. And we see the direct consequence. 00:22:50.960 --> 00:22:52.960 The camera operator who threw the watermelon 00:22:52.960 --> 00:22:55.839 was promptly fired in the ending. Pryor came 00:22:55.839 --> 00:22:57.779 back to the set the very next day, according 00:22:57.779 --> 00:23:01.759 to the sources, all smiles. It reveals this highly 00:23:01.759 --> 00:23:05.019 charged, difficult atmosphere around him where. 00:23:05.549 --> 00:23:08.349 Real emotional trauma and historical slights 00:23:08.349 --> 00:23:10.509 were constantly mixed in with the pursuit of 00:23:10.509 --> 00:23:13.009 professional and financial leverage. It's a moment 00:23:13.009 --> 00:23:15.009 that really defines the complexity of dealing 00:23:15.009 --> 00:23:17.950 with a genius who is both deeply wounded and 00:23:17.950 --> 00:23:20.490 at times deeply manipulative. He wrapped up the 00:23:20.490 --> 00:23:22.869 decade in a major way, though, with Harlem Nights 00:23:22.869 --> 00:23:26.569 in 1989, sharing the screen with two other generations 00:23:26.569 --> 00:23:29.289 of black comedy titans, Eddie Murphy and Red 00:23:29.289 --> 00:23:32.670 Fox. It felt like a symbolic passing of the torch, 00:23:32.789 --> 00:23:35.190 even as his own health was beginning its. final 00:23:35.190 --> 00:23:38.349 sad decline. You know if Pryor's professional 00:23:38.349 --> 00:23:41.250 life was a high wire act his personal life was 00:23:41.250 --> 00:23:44.349 a total hurricane. It was marked by extreme intensity 00:23:44.349 --> 00:23:47.009 and chaos. He was married seven times to five 00:23:47.009 --> 00:23:49.309 different women. And he fathered seven children 00:23:49.309 --> 00:23:51.730 with six different women including his daughter 00:23:51.730 --> 00:23:55.670 Rain Pryor and son Richard Pryor Jr. His relationships 00:23:55.670 --> 00:23:58.309 were famously turbulent. We know he dated the 00:23:58.309 --> 00:24:00.990 iconic actress Pam Greer and she actually played 00:24:00.990 --> 00:24:03.710 this critical supportive role. She tried to help 00:24:03.710 --> 00:24:05.480 him learn. to read and desperately helped him 00:24:05.480 --> 00:24:07.619 manage his intense drug addiction. But while 00:24:07.619 --> 00:24:09.539 he was dating her and getting all that support, 00:24:09.759 --> 00:24:12.339 he simultaneously married another woman. His 00:24:12.339 --> 00:24:14.640 marital timeline just has this recurring pattern. 00:24:14.839 --> 00:24:17.859 Brief, intense connection, followed by collapse. 00:24:18.160 --> 00:24:21.220 He had two runs with Jennifer Lee, a brief 14 00:24:21.220 --> 00:24:24.240 -day marriage in 1981. And then a secret remarriage 00:24:24.240 --> 00:24:27.079 in 2001, which lasted until his death in 2005. 00:24:27.819 --> 00:24:30.680 And the discussion of his sexuality has become 00:24:30.680 --> 00:24:33.200 maybe the most recently detailed and certainly 00:24:33.200 --> 00:24:35.500 the most complex aspect of his personal story 00:24:35.500 --> 00:24:39.079 to emerge after his death. Right. In 2014, the 00:24:39.079 --> 00:24:41.400 biography Becoming Richard Pryor acknowledged 00:24:41.400 --> 00:24:44.400 his bisexuality. And that acknowledgement was 00:24:44.400 --> 00:24:48.029 amplified. significantly in 2018 when Quincy 00:24:48.029 --> 00:24:50.829 Jones and Pryor's widow, Jennifer Lee, publicly 00:24:50.829 --> 00:24:53.009 stated that Pryor had had a sexual relationship 00:24:53.009 --> 00:24:55.910 with Marlon Brando. A huge revelation. Huge. 00:24:56.089 --> 00:24:58.589 Lee and Jones both confirmed that Pryor was open 00:24:58.589 --> 00:25:01.029 with his friends about sleeping with men. But 00:25:01.029 --> 00:25:02.869 the sources are careful here to present the whole 00:25:02.869 --> 00:25:04.990 picture, including the counter -narrative. Pryor's 00:25:04.990 --> 00:25:07.329 daughter, Rain, she later publicly disputed the 00:25:07.329 --> 00:25:09.869 Marlon Brando claim. So how did Jennifer Lee 00:25:09.869 --> 00:25:12.549 respond to that? Lee insisted that Rain was simply 00:25:12.549 --> 00:25:16.279 in denial about her father's bisexuality. And 00:25:16.279 --> 00:25:19.099 this specific dispute, it ensures that you, the 00:25:19.099 --> 00:25:21.619 listener, understand there's no unified, simple 00:25:21.619 --> 00:25:24.180 narrative here. Even his own family struggles 00:25:24.180 --> 00:25:26.299 to reconcile all the different parts of his life 00:25:26.299 --> 00:25:28.700 story. And Jennifer Lee offered a quote during 00:25:28.700 --> 00:25:31.220 this period that just perfectly captured the 00:25:31.220 --> 00:25:34.380 drug fueled, hedonistic culture of the 1970s 00:25:34.380 --> 00:25:36.799 that they both lived in. Yeah. She told TMZ on 00:25:36.799 --> 00:25:39.779 TV, if you did enough cocaine, you'd fuck a radiator 00:25:39.779 --> 00:25:42.180 and send it flowers in the morning. It's an incredibly 00:25:42.180 --> 00:25:45.200 raw summary of the era. And Pryor himself provided 00:25:45.200 --> 00:25:47.559 written accounts of some of his experiences in 00:25:47.559 --> 00:25:50.759 his own autobiography, Pryor Convictions. He 00:25:50.759 --> 00:25:52.779 details a two -week relationship with a trans 00:25:52.779 --> 00:25:55.339 woman named Matrasha, which he just called two 00:25:55.339 --> 00:25:57.500 weeks of being gay. The key, again, is that he 00:25:57.500 --> 00:25:59.680 had no self -censorship about his history. None. 00:26:00.029 --> 00:26:02.490 And that radical transparency, it went all the 00:26:02.490 --> 00:26:05.769 way back to 1977, long before any public cultural 00:26:05.769 --> 00:26:07.569 discussion of bisexuality in the mainstream. 00:26:08.089 --> 00:26:10.869 He openly admitted to sexual experiences with 00:26:10.869 --> 00:26:13.210 men at a gay rights show at the Hollywood Bowl. 00:26:13.349 --> 00:26:16.470 And he was incredibly specific. He stated the 00:26:16.470 --> 00:26:19.009 incident took place in 1952 when he was only 00:26:19.009 --> 00:26:21.730 11 or 12 years old with someone named Wilbur 00:26:21.730 --> 00:26:24.700 Harp. And he openly disclosed engaging in anal 00:26:24.700 --> 00:26:27.019 sex during that encounter. I mean, this level 00:26:27.019 --> 00:26:30.940 of raw public unsolicited. Personal disclosure 00:26:30.940 --> 00:26:34.200 of childhood abuse and complex sexuality was 00:26:34.200 --> 00:26:37.079 absolutely unprecedented for a major public figure. 00:26:37.220 --> 00:26:39.759 It truly became a defining part of his art. As 00:26:39.759 --> 00:26:41.920 we move into the late 80s and 90s, those years 00:26:41.920 --> 00:26:44.180 of heavy smoking, drinking, and drug use, they 00:26:44.180 --> 00:26:46.539 finally caught up to him. We see his chronic 00:26:46.539 --> 00:26:49.059 health issues just rapidly accelerate. He had 00:26:49.059 --> 00:26:51.480 his first mild heart attack at only 36 back in 00:26:51.480 --> 00:26:55.059 1977. Then in 1986, he got a life -altering diagnosis, 00:26:55.440 --> 00:26:59.619 multiple sclerosis, MS grip. And by the mid -1990s, 00:26:59.619 --> 00:27:01.579 the disease had progressed so much that he had 00:27:01.579 --> 00:27:03.579 to rely on a power -operated mobility scooter 00:27:03.579 --> 00:27:06.299 to get around. And true to his nature, even facing 00:27:06.299 --> 00:27:09.279 this terrifying, debilitating condition, he managed 00:27:09.279 --> 00:27:11.819 to turn it into a joke. He claimed MS stood for 00:27:11.819 --> 00:27:14.339 more shit. That was his ultimate defense mechanism, 00:27:14.640 --> 00:27:17.539 transforming inescapable suffering into a punchline. 00:27:17.680 --> 00:27:20.279 But the health crises were just relentless. He 00:27:20.279 --> 00:27:21.900 suffered a second heart attack while he was in 00:27:21.900 --> 00:27:24.160 Australia in 1990, which led to triple heart 00:27:24.160 --> 00:27:27.859 bypass surgery in 1991. His body was just steadily 00:27:27.859 --> 00:27:31.299 breaking down. In his final film role, in David 00:27:31.299 --> 00:27:34.839 Lynch's Cryptic Lost Highway in 1997, it features 00:27:34.839 --> 00:27:37.319 him on the scooter. It's this poignant visual 00:27:37.319 --> 00:27:39.740 confirmation of the toll the disease had taken. 00:27:39.880 --> 00:27:42.039 And this brings us back to that central theme 00:27:42.039 --> 00:27:45.259 of contradiction. In stark contrast to his volatile 00:27:45.259 --> 00:27:48.180 professional reputation and his chaotic personal 00:27:48.180 --> 00:27:50.880 history, he developed this incredibly intense 00:27:50.880 --> 00:27:53.519 commitment to animal welfare during his later 00:27:53.519 --> 00:27:56.319 years. He became a vegetarian and campaigned 00:27:56.319 --> 00:27:58.960 vigorously for animal rights. This side of him 00:27:58.960 --> 00:28:01.200 often gets overlooked, but it was a serious commitment. 00:28:01.339 --> 00:28:03.819 He was heavily involved in a very public and 00:28:03.819 --> 00:28:06.119 successful PETA campaign that targeted major 00:28:06.119 --> 00:28:08.819 fast food corporations like KFC and Burger King 00:28:08.819 --> 00:28:11.980 over inhumane sourcing. Yeah, PETA recognized 00:28:11.980 --> 00:28:14.940 the power of his advocacy. They gave him a humanitarian 00:28:14.940 --> 00:28:17.920 award in 1999, and they continue to give an award 00:28:17.920 --> 00:28:21.500 in his name today. This image, the fiercely compassionate 00:28:21.500 --> 00:28:24.640 advocate for the voiceless, it's such a surprising 00:28:24.640 --> 00:28:27.059 and beautiful contrast to the difficult Hollywood 00:28:27.059 --> 00:28:29.319 figure who struggled so profoundly with his own 00:28:29.319 --> 00:28:32.039 demons. It just underscores the complexity of 00:28:32.039 --> 00:28:34.140 the man we're studying. Moving into his final 00:28:34.140 --> 00:28:37.660 years, we see Richard Pryor achieve one last 00:28:37.660 --> 00:28:41.200 symbolic legal victory. It's related to those 00:28:41.200 --> 00:28:43.380 early struggles that defined his whole career. 00:28:43.740 --> 00:28:46.660 In 2002, he and Jennifer Lee Pryor, they finally 00:28:46.660 --> 00:28:49.099 won the legal rights to all of that exploitative 00:28:49.099 --> 00:28:51.259 material that was being held by Laff Records. 00:28:51.440 --> 00:28:54.200 That was nearly 40 hours of analog tape. His 00:28:54.200 --> 00:28:56.720 lost history, basically. The stuff Laff had been 00:28:56.720 --> 00:28:59.460 profiting from for decades. Gaining control of 00:28:59.460 --> 00:29:02.079 that material was a massive victory. It ensured 00:29:02.079 --> 00:29:04.460 he finally owned the full narrative of his artistic 00:29:04.460 --> 00:29:07.289 evolution. And this legal win, it paved the way 00:29:07.289 --> 00:29:09.450 for the authorized compilation Evolution Revolution. 00:29:09.589 --> 00:29:12.990 The early years, which came out in 2005, it finally 00:29:12.990 --> 00:29:15.450 gave his audience the full picture of his earliest, 00:29:15.529 --> 00:29:17.690 roughest work, including the legendary Craps 00:29:17.690 --> 00:29:19.950 After Hours album, released on his terms. His 00:29:19.950 --> 00:29:22.490 final television appearance, just a simple cameo, 00:29:22.509 --> 00:29:25.910 was on The Norm Show in 1999. Richard Pryor died 00:29:25.910 --> 00:29:29.329 on the morning of December 10, 2005. He'd had 00:29:29.329 --> 00:29:32.609 a third and final heart attack. He was 65 years 00:29:32.609 --> 00:29:35.859 old. His widow, Jennifer Lee, was quoted saying 00:29:35.859 --> 00:29:38.880 that at the end there was a smile on his face. 00:29:39.259 --> 00:29:41.900 The coroner later attributed the fatal heart 00:29:41.900 --> 00:29:44.720 attack primarily to coronary artery disease caused 00:29:44.720 --> 00:29:46.700 at least partly by years of tobacco smoking. 00:29:46.980 --> 00:29:50.299 His ashes were scattered in Hana, Hawaii in 2019. 00:29:50.799 --> 00:29:53.079 And if the ultimate measure of an artist's genius 00:29:53.079 --> 00:29:56.299 is their influence, then Pryor's legacy is truly 00:29:56.299 --> 00:29:59.890 unanimous and total. He is cited as a major foundational 00:29:59.890 --> 00:30:02.430 influence by virtually every major comedian of 00:30:02.430 --> 00:30:05.390 the last half century. George Carlin, Dave Chappelle, 00:30:05.609 --> 00:30:08.410 Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, Jerry Seinfeld. The 00:30:08.410 --> 00:30:10.769 praise borders on reverence because they know 00:30:10.769 --> 00:30:12.950 they wouldn't exist without him. Jerry Seinfeld, 00:30:12.970 --> 00:30:14.809 whose style is so different, called him the Picasso 00:30:14.809 --> 00:30:16.910 of our profession. And Bob Newhart went even 00:30:16.910 --> 00:30:19.329 further. He hailed him as the seminal comedian 00:30:19.329 --> 00:30:21.990 of the last 50 years. And Dave Chappelle, you 00:30:21.990 --> 00:30:24.750 know, one of his most direct heirs, he maybe 00:30:24.750 --> 00:30:28.049 summed up the evolutionary impact best. He described 00:30:28.049 --> 00:30:31.369 Pryor as the highest evolution of comedy, using 00:30:31.369 --> 00:30:34.210 that visual metaphor of the man walking upright 00:30:34.210 --> 00:30:36.769 in the evolutionary charts. He represented the 00:30:36.769 --> 00:30:40.079 final. most complex stage of the craft. And Bill 00:30:40.079 --> 00:30:42.059 Cosby's quote, you know, despite their early 00:30:42.059 --> 00:30:44.039 professional separation and their own personal 00:30:44.039 --> 00:30:46.720 differences, it captures the essential duality 00:30:46.720 --> 00:30:49.519 of Pryor's work. Richard Pryor drew the line 00:30:49.519 --> 00:30:52.059 between comedy and tragedy as thin as one could 00:30:52.059 --> 00:30:54.720 possibly paint it. He showed that comedy could 00:30:54.720 --> 00:30:57.720 be inherently dramatic, even tragic. His posthumous 00:30:57.720 --> 00:31:00.180 honors just keep coming in. Yeah. He was ranked 00:31:00.180 --> 00:31:02.200 number one on Rolling Stone's list of the 50 00:31:02.200 --> 00:31:05.640 best stand -up comics in 2017. He was inducted 00:31:05.640 --> 00:31:07.880 into the National Comedy Center in 2022. And 00:31:07.880 --> 00:31:10.359 that inaugural Mark Twain Prize citation from 00:31:10.359 --> 00:31:12.759 98, it really captured the final weight of his 00:31:12.759 --> 00:31:15.220 career. It honored him for striking a chord and 00:31:15.220 --> 00:31:18.279 a nerve with America, forcing it to look at large 00:31:18.279 --> 00:31:21.200 social questions of race and the more tragicomic 00:31:21.200 --> 00:31:23.900 aspects of the human condition. He didn't just 00:31:23.900 --> 00:31:26.380 entertain. He forced the audience to look inward. 00:31:26.599 --> 00:31:28.799 His life just demands to be told over and over 00:31:28.799 --> 00:31:31.539 again. It's fueled numerous retrospective works. 00:31:32.039 --> 00:31:34.089 Documentaries like The Funny Life of... Richard 00:31:34.089 --> 00:31:37.569 Pryor, Richard Pryor. Omit the logic. I am Richard 00:31:37.569 --> 00:31:39.589 Pryor. And we know the biopic Richard Pryor. 00:31:39.589 --> 00:31:41.849 Is it something I said? It remains in development 00:31:41.849 --> 00:31:44.890 with Mike Epps attached to Star and Oprah Winfrey 00:31:44.890 --> 00:31:47.769 as a producer. His story is just far too compelling 00:31:47.769 --> 00:31:50.910 and far too complex to ever be fully settled. 00:31:51.990 --> 00:31:54.849 Okay, so let's try to unpack this whole journey. 00:31:54.970 --> 00:31:58.049 We've traced this central... undeniable duality 00:31:58.049 --> 00:32:00.549 of Richard Pryor's career. He took the absolute 00:32:00.549 --> 00:32:03.269 worst of personal trauma child abuse, growing 00:32:03.269 --> 00:32:05.750 up in a brothel, addiction, the self -immolation 00:32:05.750 --> 00:32:09.720 incident. And somehow he transmuted that chaos 00:32:09.720 --> 00:32:12.039 and controversy into universally impactful comedy 00:32:12.039 --> 00:32:14.180 that just it fundamentally shifted the comedic 00:32:14.180 --> 00:32:15.940 landscape forever. He was a force of nature. 00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:17.920 But the contradictions are just staggering. I 00:32:17.920 --> 00:32:20.180 mean, this is the man who turned his near fatal 00:32:20.180 --> 00:32:22.660 drug addiction into his most iconic joke, a joke 00:32:22.660 --> 00:32:24.980 that earned him millions. Right. Yet he was also 00:32:24.980 --> 00:32:27.579 the same man who leveraged allegations of onset 00:32:27.579 --> 00:32:31.099 racism for financial gain, possibly blurring 00:32:31.099 --> 00:32:33.900 the line between genuine outrage and professional 00:32:33.900 --> 00:32:36.380 calculation. as the source material suggests. 00:32:36.680 --> 00:32:39.039 And then there's that profound public pivot, 00:32:39.160 --> 00:32:42.319 that vow he took in 1979 in Kenya to stop using 00:32:42.319 --> 00:32:44.880 the N -word in his act. It was a moment of deep 00:32:44.880 --> 00:32:48.069 ethical and spiritual reckoning. So how does 00:32:48.069 --> 00:32:51.049 that moral clarity coexist with the difficult, 00:32:51.289 --> 00:32:54.089 sometimes manipulative Hollywood figure? And 00:32:54.089 --> 00:32:56.730 how does his intense, passionate dedication to 00:32:56.730 --> 00:32:59.390 animal activism fit into the narrative of a man 00:32:59.390 --> 00:33:01.990 who caused so much turbulence for himself and 00:33:01.990 --> 00:33:03.809 everyone around him? It raises a really important 00:33:03.809 --> 00:33:05.809 question for you, the listener, to mull over 00:33:05.809 --> 00:33:09.150 long after this deep dive ends. How does an individual 00:33:09.150 --> 00:33:11.609 with such intense personal contradictions, such 00:33:11.609 --> 00:33:13.670 profound darkness and surprising light, remain 00:33:13.670 --> 00:33:15.869 so utterly unified and authentic in their artistic 00:33:15.869 --> 00:33:18.990 voice? He was a walking paradox. It makes you 00:33:18.990 --> 00:33:20.589 wonder, you know, the most authentic artistic 00:33:20.589 --> 00:33:23.289 truth often emerges not from stability or from 00:33:23.289 --> 00:33:26.430 peace, not from a resolved, clean life, but precisely 00:33:26.430 --> 00:33:30.089 from the chaos and contradiction within. Pryor 00:33:30.089 --> 00:33:32.089 was the ultimate proof that you don't have to 00:33:32.089 --> 00:33:34.130 resolve your internal conflicts to create something 00:33:34.130 --> 00:33:36.589 lasting. Sometimes you just have to give those 00:33:36.589 --> 00:33:38.930 contradictions a microphone and the courage to 00:33:38.930 --> 00:33:41.730 set yourself on fire, both literally and figuratively, 00:33:41.730 --> 00:33:43.250 for the entire world to see.