Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, daughter of the groundbreaking comedian Richard Pryor, has detailed the complexities of her relationship with her father in her new memoir, "Something We Said." The book explores Pryor's struggles with addiction, his numerous relationships, and a significant family rift caused by a racial slur.
Pryor's daughter recounts that on the night of her birth in 1967, her father was in Tijuana, Mexico, on a marijuana charge, while her mother, Maxine, drove herself to the hospital in Los Angeles. The couple separated shortly after, and Elizabeth did not meet her father until she was six years old.
As Pryor's fame grew with films like "Blazing Saddles" and "Stir Crazy," his struggles with drugs and alcohol intensified, drawing national attention. Elizabeth writes about incidents such as her father shooting at his then-wife's car during an argument and the widely reported event where he set himself on fire while freebasing cocaine. He was treated for burns on more than 50 percent of his body.
"He couldn’t stop messing up," Stordeur Pryor writes, describing a household filled with alcohol and cocaine. "Every night, Mercy [his housekeeper] put a wastepaper basket by the side of his bed so he wouldn’t throw up on the floor. He passed out all the time. Waking him was nearly impossible."
A central conflict in the memoir involves the evolution of the N-word. Elizabeth recounts a bitter argument with her mother, Maxine, who had claimed to be Pryor's wife despite him being married to someone else at the time of Elizabeth's birth. During the fight, her mother allegedly used the N-word against her. When Elizabeth told her father about the incident, he reportedly never spoke to Maxine again.
Stordeur Pryor also reveals a confession from her father about the fire incident. "It wasn’t an accident," he told her. "I lit myself on fire on purpose. I tried to kill myself."
Richard Pryor was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1986, a disease that progressively impacted his physical abilities. Stordeur Pryor describes his final years as a period of severe decline, requiring constant care. She alleges that towards the end of his life, carers limited her visits and once prevented her from kissing her father goodbye.
Richard Pryor died of a heart attack on December 10, 2005, at the age of 65. His funeral, held in the Hollywood Hills, is described by his daughter as "a travesty of a mockery of a sham," characterized by its sterile, white aesthetic, which she felt was incongruous with her father's life and legacy.
Further distress followed when Stordeur Pryor learned she had been largely cut out of her father's will. "I knew in my heart that was not what he wanted," she stated. After legal battles, she was disinherited. Her mother later gave her a briefcase containing her father's notebooks, letters, and unfinished jokes, which she found to be a crucial connection to understanding him, calling it her "priceless heirloom."