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In her 2010 memoir, Foxy: My Life In Three Acts, Pam Grier claimed that her sexual relationship with Richard Pryor caused cocaine to enter her system! Richard also got engaged to another woman while dating her. Pam was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1988.

Pam recounts how a conversation with her doctor led to her confronting Richard:

He said, “Pam, I want to tell you about an epidemic that’s prevalent in Beverly Hills right now. It’s a buildup of cocaine residue around the cervix and in the vagina. You have it. Are you doing drugs?”

“No,” I said, astonished.

“Well, it’s really dangerous,“ he went on. “Is your partner putting cocaine on his penis to sustain his erection?”

“No,” I said, “not that I know of. It’s not like he has a pile of cocaine next to the bed and he dips his penis in it before we have sex.” I had a nauseating flash of one of Richard’s famous lines: Even my dick has a cocaine jones.

“Are you sure he isn’t doing it in the bathroom before he comes to bed?” the doctor asked.

“That’s a possibility,” I said. “You know, I am dating Richard Pryor.”

“Oh, my God,” he said. “We have a serious problem here. If he’s not putting it on his skin directly, then it’s worse because the coke is in his seminal fluid. You can have some serious cervical and uterine problems. You can even become sterile and you might have to have a hysterectomy.”

“Will it ever go away,” I asked. “It’ll go away eventually,” the doctor said.

“In the meantime, he has to wear a condom or you’re going to be a very sick woman.”

The doctor then asks her if her mouth went numb while performing oral sex on Richard, she says it did, and he links it the Novocaine-like effects of cocaine. Pam confronted Richard about protecting her health and he rejected the issue:

Later that evening, I told Richard, I have cocaine inside of me. It’s eating me up and it could kill me. Have you been putting it on your penis?

“No. Of course not,” he answered quickly. I took a deep breath. “I have to ask you to wear a condom when we have sex.”

“What?” was all he said.

I said, “you have to Richard,” I pleaded with him. “Only for a while. I have to get rid of these lesions so I don’t get infections.”

He said, “I hate condoms. I can’t feel anything.”

“Will you at least talk to my doctor?”

“No.”