The late Malcolm-Jamal Warner admitted his disappointment that The Cosby Show cast never got to reboot the classic sitcom.
“We could have made a lot of money,” he told Jemele Hill in a resurfaced 2023 interview. “Fuller House, they’re doing their thing. The Conners, man, we’d be making a killing right now.”
Warner — who died at age 54 on Sunday, July 20, from asphyxia caused by an accidental drowning — earned an Emmy nomination for playing Theodore Huxtable on the classic NBC sitcom. The Cosby Show was a staple of syndication reruns and streaming until creator and star Bill Cosby was accused of sexual misconduct by more than 60 women. (Cosby was convicted of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in April 2018 but was ultimately released from prison after serving two years of a 10-year sentence when a Pennsylvania high court honored an agreement with a previous prosecutor that prevented Cosby from being charged. Cosby has always denied any wrongdoing.)
Cosby Show reruns were mostly pulled from TV syndication amidst the allegations, though the sitcom now has limited streaming availability via Amazon’s Prime Video. As a result of the controversy, there were no significant talks of bringing back The Cosby Show in an era where classic sitcoms such as Frasier, Mad About You, Roseanne and Full House were all revived.
In his 2023 interview, Warner was asked by Hill whether he was “resentful” that Cosby’s scandal prevented the rest of the cast from profiting from the streaming boom.
“No. Not resentment,” Warner insisted. “I get how this business works, for one. And just that whole situation is so layered, man.”
The actor went on, “I can’t defend him or his actions at all. But I also can’t throw him under the bus completely. … There is the piece of the financial hit that we all took, but also it hasn’t really affected my career.”
Warner clarified that he’d been lucky to have worked steadily enough “so [his] life would not have to be dependent upon that show or dependent upon Theo.” (Warner memorably appeared in Suits, The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story and The Resident throughout his 43-year career.)
Warner previously suggested in 2015 that the allegations against Cosby were inconsistent with the person he’d grown close to on the Cosby Show set.
“The Bill Cosby I know has been great to me and great for a lot of people,” Warner told Billboard in January 2015. “What he’s done for comedy and television has been legendary and history-making. What he’s done for the black community and education has been invaluable. That’s the Bill Cosby I know. I can’t speak on the other stuff.”
He continued, “He’s one of my mentors, and he’s been very influential and played a big role in my life as a friend and mentor. Just as it’s painful to hear any woman talk about sexual assault, whether true or not, it’s just as painful to watch my friend and mentor go through this.”
Following the news of Warner’s death, he was mourned by members of the Cosby Show cast — including Cosby. The disgraced comedy icon likened Warner’s death to the murder of his son, Ennis, at age 27 in 1997 in a failed robbery attempt.
“This reminds me of the call I got when I was taping The Cosby Show and I got a call saying that my son, Ennis, had been murdered,” Cosby, 88, told Us Weekly via his rep, Andrew Wyatt, on Monday, July 21. “It’s just devastating.”
Cosby said he’d last been in touch with Warner “three weeks ago about a performance” he’d had in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
“He was so ecstatic about how the crowd received him,” Cosby added. “Malcolm was changing the world, humanizing the world through his acting, his music, his poetry and even his new podcast.”
Warner was survived by his wife and daughter, both of whom he chose to keep private.
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