Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, the third eldest child of legendary comedian Richard Pryor, has revealed a painful childhood memory involving her white mother.
In her new book, "Something We Said: Richard Pryor, a Notorious Word, and Me," Elizabeth writes that her mother, Maxine Silverman, called her the N-word during an argument when she was just 12 years old.
She describes the incident as one of her earliest traumatic experiences as a biracial woman.
Elizabeth told PEOPLE that while she knew her mother loved her, the topic of her Black identity was never discussed with her mother's side of the family.
Ignoring her background only led to questions. Elizabeth recalled asking her cousins, "Did you know that I was Black?"
and "Were you told to behave in a particular way around it?"
Richard Pryor, who died in 2005 at age 65, had seven children with six different women.
