The Cosby Show star Malcolm-Jamal Warner has died of accidental drowning at the age of 54, several outlets report.
TMZ cites “an unconfirmed, though reliable source” for its report on the cause of the shock death. People reports from its sourcing that Warner was on vacation in Costa Rica with his family when he drowned while swimming. The Costa Rican National Police confirmed to ABC News that the star died on Sunday from asphyxia after he was caught by a high current.
Police also told the outlet that Warner was found in the afternoon near Cocles, a beach in Limon, and was formally identified by the authorities.
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Warner’s latest project, his podcast Not All Hood, which encourages a more nuanced perspective on the lives of Black Americans, aired its most recent episode three days ago.
Warner starred on The Cosby Show from 1984 until the show’s end in 1992, where he portrayed the only son in the Huxtable clan, Theo. He’s since taken on several roles on both the big and small screen, and most recently appeared in Alert: Missing Persons Unit and 9-1-1.
Despite the controversy surrounding its titular star Bill Cosby, who was convicted on three counts of aggravated indecent assault in 2018 before the ruling was overturned on a technicality in 2021, Warner has insisted The Cosby Show “is something that we are all still very proud of.”
Cosby has said that Warner’s character on the show was based on his real-life son Ennis Cosby through various storylines and character arcs, like Theo’s dyslexia and the college graduation episode airing right when the real-life young Cosby would graduate weeks later.
Five years after the show concluded in 1997, however, Cosby’s son also had an early and untimely death, succumbing to a gunshot wound from a botched robbery.
Warner told Backstage about what his audition to play Theo was like in 1984, when he was just 13 years old.
“I’m at the audition, and I’m playing Theo like kids on TV—precocious, and rolling my eyes, and hitting all the beats,” he told the site. “I feel I’m killing. Everyone in the room is laughing. I look up, and Mr. Cosby is just looking at me with his face in his hand. ‘Would you talk to your father like that?’ I said, ‘No,’ and he said, ‘Well, I don’t want to see it on this show. You work on it and come on back.’ I thought I had blown it, but I worked on the scene with my acting teacher. This time when I auditioned, it was real. Mr. Cosby’s philosophy is that all humor is based on truth.”
When accusations of sexual assault against Cosby were made public, the Emmy-nominated actor insisted his position wasn’t “in defense of him or throwing him under the bus,” but criticized media coverage of Cosby’s legal trouble as making the allegations into a “circus.”
Warner said his “biggest concern” was the “tarnishing” of The Cosby Show‘s legacy. “No matter what… negative stereotypes of people of color, we’ve always had The Cosby Show to hold up against that,” he told The Associated Press in 2015. “And the fact that we no longer have that, that’s the thing that saddens me the most because in a few generations the Huxtables will have been just a fairy tale.”
After playing Theo for eight seasons on Cosby, Warner starred in UPN’s Malcolm & Eddie, and later became a frequent guest star on a number of TV dramas, including The People v. O.J. Simpson, Community, Dexter, Major Crimes, Suits, The Resident, and more.
He was private about his personal life, though he dated Oscar-winning actress Regina King from 2011 to 2013. That relationship seemed to not have ended well, as fans speculated that the famous ex she told Us Weekly “broke up with her on Valentine’s” Day was Warner.
Warner leaves behind a wife and daughter, whose identities he’s never revealed. Based on photos from his Instagram, his daughter would be about eight-years-old.
