The house where comedian and actor Richard Pryor lit himself on fire has sold for millions decades after the terrifying incident took place.
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The property sold for $3,619,000, TMZ reported. It hit the market earlier this spring when the now-former owner, ex-NFL player turned Hollywood writer Rashard Mendenhall decided to move. He purchased the home for $2.5 million in 2017.
However, Mendenhall had to come down in price to sell the property. He originally listed it at $4,236,000.
Four years before the infamous 1980 incident, Richard Pryor purchased the property. One night, he doused himself in rum and accidentally set him on fire while he was freebasing cocaine. The incident left him with severe burns on more than 50% of his body.
Pryor spent six weeks at the Grossman Burn Center at Sherman Oaks Hospital in Los Angeles. His daughter also stated that the situation happened as a result of drug-induced psychosis.
The property boasts 6,000 square feet of living space on a 2.2-acre lot. It is also located in the exclusive Sherwood Forest Neighborhood.
The house has a gourmet kitchen, billiard room, and library, and a separate guest house and pool house – each has its own kitchen.
Richard Pryor’s Widow Jennifer Lee Says His 1980 Fire Incident Was a Suicide Attempt
In the 2019 Paramount Network documentary I Am Richard Pryor, the late actor’s widow, Jennifer Lee Pryor opened up about the fire incident. She said she believed it was a suicide attempt.
“He warned me,” Jennifer told PEOPLE. “He said to me, ‘I’ve decided what to do. I have to do this otherwise I don’t know how I’m going to get out. There’s no way out of this so you need to leave so you don’t get hurt too.’”
Jennifer also stated that Richard was planning something. However, she didn’t know what. “I called the house. Somebody answered and then the next thing I know they drop the phone and I heard someone screaming, and Richard at that time running through the house on fire.”
Jennifer also stated that Richard previously set his bed on fire while doing freebase cocaine before the 1980 incident. She believed it was “a precursor of things to come.”
“I came home one afternoon and I could smell the fire,” Jennifer explained. She made the decision to move out of the home after that incident. “I moved out not long after that. I got an apartment in Beverly Hills and would see him intermittently.”
Following the incident, the couple decided to get married. They exchanged in 1981 shortly after Richard got out of the hospital. However, they divorced after he hit Jennifer while on their honeymoon.
20 years after their first wedding, the couple remarried. They were together until Pryor’s death in 2005.