Richard Pryor: The Man Who Burned It All Down | From Big Lives

Natalie Robehmed· Host0:00

[upbeat music] Hey everyone, Natalie here. As you know, Vanessa and I spend a lot of time on Infamous pulling back the curtain on the powerful people who fascinate us, people whose lives are so outsized, so complicated, that you can't look away. Today, we want to share something with you that we think fits right into that spirit. It's an episode from a new podcast called Big Lives, hosted by journalists Kai Wright and Emmanuel Dzotsi. The premise is exactly what it sounds like. Kai and Emmanuel explore the story behind the icons who shape our culture, trailblazers like David Bowie, Meg Ryan, Amy Winehouse, and Tina Turner, to better understand how each legend set the stage for our contemporary cultural landscape, and they do it by digging into the BBC archives to find material that reframes what you think you already know about these figures. It's rigorous, it's raw, and it goes to the places most profiles are too polite to go. Today's preview is about Richard Pryor, and examines what it actually looks like when someone's genius and their downfall are inseparable. Pryor redefined comedy by telling the truth, even when it scorched him. Kai and Emmanuel trace Pryor's life from a childhood in a Peoria brothel to becoming arguably the most important comedian who ever lived, and they don't flinch from any of it: the racism he suffered, the self-destruction, the volcanic honesty that made him untouchable and cost him everything at the same time. It's the story of a man who changed culture by refusing