Jamie Foxx and Beyonce lead Hollywood in grieving The Cosby Show star Malcolm-Jamal Warner's shock death
According to Costa Rican authorities, Warner drowned off the coast near Cocles Beach on Sunday, July 20. His official cause of death has been confirmed as asphyxia.
Best known for his role as Theodore Huxtable, the only son of Bill Cosby 's character, Heathcliff Huxtable, Warner became a beloved household name during his time on the beloved NBC sitcom, which ran from 1984 to 1992.
His legacy as a cultural icon was cemented not only through his Emmy-nominated performance, but also through decades of work across television, music, and film.
News of his sudden death sent shockwaves through the entertainment industry, prompting a wave of tributes from colleagues, costars, and fellow performers who remembered him not just as a gifted actor, but as a generous spirit and trusted friend.
Jamie Foxx and Beyoncé were among the first stars to honor Warner, sharing a brief but powerful message on Instagram.
'Speechless on this one rest in power, my brother,' he captioned his tribute.
Beyonce posted a statement to her website that read, 'Rest in Power, Malcolm-Jamal Warner. Thanks for being a big part of our shared television history. You will be missed.'
Kevin Hart, clearly shaken, reacted to the news in a comment under People's Instagram post.
'WTF…. Wow. This is heartbreaking,' the comedian wrote. RIP king…. Woooow.'
Meanwhile, Kate Hudson reflected on spending time with him while shooting a film in Australia.
'He was the kindest and sweetest,' she wrote on her Instagram Story. 'My heart is heavy and sending such love to @malcolmjamalwar family.'
In reaction to the tragedy, Kerry Washington wrote that she was 'deeply saddened by this loss.'
Tracee Ellis Ross paid homage to her first TV husband with a very thoughtful post.
'My heart is so so sad. What an actor and friend you were: warm, gentle, present, kind, thoughtful, deep, funny, elegant,' she wrote. 'You made the world a brighter place. Sending so much love to your family. I'm so sorry for this unimaginable loss.'
Comedian and actor Eddie Griffin, who costarred with Warner on the sitcom Malcolm & Eddie, posted a moving tribute to his Instagram Story alongside a photo of his longtime friend. He captioned the shot, 'My Big little Brother.'
Taraji P. Henson posted multiple photos of the late star, along with a heartfelt caption.
'This one hurt. Malcolm, we grew up with you. Thank you for the art, the wisdom, the grace you gave us!!!!! You left the world better than you found it. Rest easy, king!!!! Your legacy lives far beyond the screen,' the actress wrote.
Marlee Matlin, who directed an episode of Accused in which Warner guest-starred, also paid tribute on Instagram. Sharing a photo from a 2023 panel they appeared on together, she wrote:
'I am so sad to read of the untimely passing of Malcolm Jamal Warner. He was the nicest guy and it was a privilege to have been in the same company with him, sharing a directors' panel along with @HowardmGordon and Michael Chiklis. My heart goes out to his family and friends. RIP Malcolm.'
Morris Chestnut also paid tribute to his former The Resident costar.
'Heartbroken to hear about the passing of Malcolm-Jamal Warner. Working alongside him on The Resident was an honor. He brought so much depth, warmth, and wisdom to every scene and every conversation. One of the nicest in the business. Rest easy, brother. Your legacy lives on,' the actor wrote on Instagram.
Holly Robinson admitted that she was 'struggling to process' his death.
'Malcolm was so deeply loved, respected, and a true icon of television. We first met in the '80s on the set of The Cosby Show, when my dad was a writer/producer and remained friends throughout the years. He was always gracious, kind, funny and gave the absolute best hugs. I am sending my deepest condolences to his mom, Pamela and his family,' she wrote on Instagram.
She concluded: 'We aren't ready to say goodbye, Malcolm —but you lived with purpose, character, presence, and grace. Rest well, my friend. Your light lives on.'
While reflecting on her friend's death, Niecy Nash revealed they had 'just spoke.'
'You were giving my my flowers for my work in @grotesqueriefx and we talked about how happy we both were in our marriages. Damn friend [crying emoji] You were cornerstone of The Cosby Show. We all loved Theo! Never to be forgotten. You will be missed. Rest Easy,' she captioned her Instagram post.
Mike Colter fondly recalled running into Warner 'about a year ago.'
'Wow. I ran into this prince of man about a year ago. We had previously connected during the covid lockdown down and exchanged kind words. I was fascinated by his depth and concern for his fellow man. His compassion for his people. His musical gifts and expressions in spoken word,' he wrote. 'Yes of course I had watched him as I grew up on the Cosby Show but he had grown into so much more as an artist and a man. A father.'
He concluded: 'I took this photo as his mother sat across from us. I complimented her on what a great job she had done with her son in this industry. He turn out so well. My heart goes out to her. I never heard a harsh word spoken about him. His legacy will live on. I'm so sorry for this loss to his family and friends. i'm in shock to be honest.'
Other stars took to social media to express their shock and grief, including Ricki Lake, Jennie Garth, Patti LaBelle and Mario Lopez, who shared broken heart emojis.
Daily Mail has reached out to Warner's representatives for comment, but they have not yet responded.
While the exact circumstances surrounding the incident remain unclear, experts note that some beaches in Costa Rica can pose serious risks depending on conditions.
Though many areas are safe for swimming, others are known for powerful currents and rip tides that demand caution.
According to WedMD, Asphyxia 'happens when your body doesn't get enough oxygen to keep you from passing.'
Breathing impairment, due to water inhalation, can cause the condition, which can result in unconsciousness or death.
Although it is unknown what caused him to drown, the waters in Costa Rica can be dangerous, depending on the specific beach and conditions.
While many beaches offer safe swimming, some have strong currents and rip tides that require caution.
The actor, best known for his role as Theodore Huxtable on the beloved NBC sitcom, appeared in all eight seasons from 1984 to 1992.
At the time, Warner was just a teenager, but his performance earned widespread acclaim, including a nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series at the 1986 Primetime Emmy Awards.
Warner is survived by his wife and young daughter, born in 2017.
While he occasionally shared glimpses of his family life on social media, he chose to keep their identities private, opting not to publicly reveal their names.
His character, Theo, was based on Bill Cosby's real-life son, Ennis Cosby, and was portrayed with depth and sensitivity.
In the show, Theo is diagnosed with dyslexia after struggling academically during his freshman year at New York University—an arc that resonated with many viewers.
Beyond The Cosby Show, Warner carved out a successful and diverse career in both comedy and drama.
He starred as Malcolm McGee in the UPN sitcom Malcolm & Eddie (1996–2000) opposite Eddie Griffin, and later headlined BET's Reed Between the Lines from 2011 to 2015 as Dr. Alex Reed.
The actor was in Costa Rica with his family where he drowned while swimming off the coast of Costa Rica on Sunday, local authorities told ABC News
His television credits also included recurring roles and guest appearances on shows like Sons of Anarchy, Jeremiah, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and Community. Warner also voiced the Producer character on the educational children's series The Magic School Bus.
Prior to his breakout role, Warner, who was born in New Jersey, he attended a performing arts school in New York City.
Cosby personally selected Warner to play his son.
In 2023, Warner insisted he and the rest of the cast of The Cosby Show 'still very proud of' their hit series.
'We share a unique experience that keeps us lovingly bonded no matter how much time goes between seeing or hearing from each other,' he told People.
'Regardless of how some people may feel about the show now, I'm still proud of the legacy and having been a part of such an iconic show that had such a profound impact on — first and foremost, Black culture — but also American culture,' Warner explained, nodding to the rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment claims against his former onscreen dad.
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Obviously, the word 'genocide' is very strong and risks causing offence, given its proper meaning. To Curtis, however, it is accurate. 'I've used that word for a long time and I use it specifically because it's a strong word. I believe that we have wiped out a generation or two of natural human [appearance]. The concept that you can alter the way you look through chemicals, surgical procedures, fillers – there's a disfigurement of generations of predominantly women who are altering their appearances. And it is aided and abetted by AI, because now the filter face is what people want. I'm not filtered right now. The minute I lay a filter on and you see the before and after, it's hard not to go: 'Oh, well that looks better.' But what's better? Better is fake. And there are too many examples – I will not name them – but very recently we have had a big onslaught through media, many of those people.' Well, at the risk of sounding harsh, one of the people implicated by Curtis's criticism is Lindsay Lohan, her Freakier Friday co-star and a woman in her late 30s who has seemingly had a lot of cosmetic procedures at a startlingly young age (though Lohan denies having had surgery). In terms of mentoring Lohan, with whom Curtis remained friends after making the first film, she says: 'I'm bossy, very bossy, but I try to mind my own business. She doesn't need my advice. She's a fully functioning, smart woman, creative person. Privately, she's asked me questions, but nothing that's more than an older friend you might ask.' But given the stridency of Curtis's position on cosmetic surgery, don't younger women feel judged in her presence? Isn't it awkward? 'No. No. Because I don't care. It doesn't matter. I'm not proselytising to them. I would never say a word. I would never say to someone: what have you done? All I know is that it is a never-ending cycle. That, I know. Once you start, you can't stop. But it's not my job to give my opinion; it's none of my business.' As for Lohan, Curtis says: 'I felt tremendous maternal care for Lindsay after the first movie, and continued to feel that. When she'd come to LA, I would see her. She and I have remained friends, and now we're sort of colleagues. I feel less maternal towards her because she's a mommy now herself and doesn't need my maternal care, and has, obviously, a mom – Dina's a terrific grandma.' Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion The general point about the horror of trying to stay young via surgery is sensible and, of course, I agree. At the back of my mind, however, I have a small, pinging reservation that I can't quite put my finger on. I suggest to Curtis that she has natural advantages by virtue of being a movie star, which, on the one hand, of course, makes her more vulnerable around issues of ageing, but on the other hand, she's naturally beautiful and everyone loves her, and most average women who – 'I have short grey hair!' she protests. 'Other women can –' They can, of course! But you must have a physical confidence that falls outside the normal – 'No! No!' She won't have it. 'I feel like you're trying to say: 'You're in some rarefied air, Jamie.'' I'm not! She responds: 'By the way, genetics – you can't fuck with genetics. You want to know where my genetics lie?' She lifts up an arm and wobbles her bingo wings at me. 'Are you kidding me? By the way, you're not going to see a picture of me in a tank top, ever.' This is Curtis's red line. 'I wear long-sleeve shirts; that's just common sense.' She gives me a beady look. 'I challenge you that I'm in some rarefied air.' I think about this afterwards to try and clarify my objection, which I guess is this: that the main reason women in middle age dye their hair is to stave off invisibility, which, with the greatest respect, is not among the veteran movie star's problems. But it's a minor quibble given what I genuinely believe is Curtis's helpful and iconoclastic gesture. And when she talks about cosmetic surgery as addiction, she should know. Curtis was an alcoholic until she got sober at 40 and is emphatic and impressive on this subject, the current poster woman – literally: she's on signs across LA for an addiction charity with the tagline: 'My bravest thing? Getting sober'. I'm curious about how her intense need for control worked, in those years long ago, alongside her addiction? 'I am a controlled addict,' she says. 'In recovery we talk about how, in order to start recovering, you have to hit what you call a 'bottom'. 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I wonder, then, whether Curtis's success during those years disguised how serious a situation she was in with her addiction? 'There's no one way to be an addict or an alcoholic. People hide things – I was lucky, and I am ambitious, and so I never let that self-medication get in the way of my ambition or work or creativity. It never bled through. No one would ever have said that had been an issue for me.' Where was the cost? 'The external costs are awful for people; but the internal costs are more sinister and deadly, because to understand that you are powerless over something other than your own mind and creativity is something. But that was a long time ago. I'm an old lady now.' She is doing better than ever. With the Oscar under her belt, Curtis has just returned in the new season of The Bear and has a slew of projects – many developed with Jason Blum, the veteran horror producer with whom she has a development deal – coming down the line. Watching her bravura performance as Donna Berzatto, I did wonder if playing an alcoholic had been in any way traumatic. She flashes me a look of pure vehemence. 'Here's what's traumatic: not being able to express your range as an artist. That's traumatic. To spend your entire public life holding back range. And depth. And complexity. And contradiction. And rage. And pain. And sorrow.' She builds momentum: 'And to have been limited to a much smaller palette of creative, emotional work. 'For me, it was an unleashing of 50 years of being a performer who was never considered to have any range. And so the freedom, and the confidence, that I was given by Chris [Storer, the show's creator], and the writing, which leads you … everywhere you need to go – it was exhilarating.' She continues: 'It took no toll. The toll has been 40 years of holding back something I know is here.' Well, there she is, the Curtis who thrills and inspires. Among the many new projects is The Lost Bus, a survival disaster movie for AppleTV+ about a bus full of children trying to escape wildfires. The idea came to Curtis while she was driving on the freeway, listening to an NPR report on the deadly wildfires of 2018 in the small town of Paradise, California. She pulled over and called Blum; the movie, directed by Paul Greengrass and starring Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera, drops later this year. For another project, she managed to persuade Patricia Cornwell, the superstar thriller writer, to release the rights for her Scarpetta series, which, as well as producing, Curtis will star in alongside Nicole Kidman. This burst of activity is something Curtis ascribes to the 'freedom' she derived from losing 'all vanity', and over the course of our conversation 'freedom' is the word she most frequently uses to describe what she values in life. Freedom is a particularly loaded and precious concept for those on the other side of addiction and, says Curtis, 'I have dead relatives; I have parents who both had issues with drinking and drugs. I have a dead sibling. I have numerous friends who never found the freedom, which is really the goal – right? Freedom.' It's a principle that also extends to her family. Curtis's daughter Ruby, 29, is trans, and I ask how insulated they are from Donald Trump's aggressively anti-trans policies. 'I want to be careful because I protect my family,' says Curtis. 'I'm an outspoken advocate for the right of human beings to be who they are. And if a governmental organisation tries to claim they're not allowed to be who they are, I will fight against that. I'm a John Steinbeck student – he's my favourite writer – and there's a beautiful piece of writing from East of Eden about the freedom of people to be who they are. Any government, religion, institution trying to limit that freedom is what I need to fight against.' There are many, many other subjects to cycle through, including Curtis's friendship with Mariska Hargitay, whose new documentary about her mother, Jayne Mansfield, hit Curtis particularly hard, not least because 'Jayne's house was next to Tony Curtis's house – that big pink house on Carolwood Drive that Tony Curtis lived in and Sonny and Cher owned prior to him.' (I don't know if referring to her dad as 'Tony Curtis,' is intended to charm, but it does.) There's also a school reunion she went to over a decade ago; the feeling she has of being 'a 14-year-old energy bunny'; the fact we've been pronouncing 'Everest' wrong all this time; the role played by lyrics from Justin Timberlake's Like I Love You in her friendship with Lindsay Lohan; and the 'Gordian knot' of what happens when not being a brand becomes your brand. Curtis could, one suspects, summon an infinite stream of enthusiasms and – perhaps no better advertisement for ageing, this – share urgent thoughts about every last one of them. In an industry in which people weigh their words, veil their opinions and pander to every passing ideal, she has gone in a different direction, one unrestrained by the usual timidities. Or as she puts it with her typical take-it-or-leave-it flatness, 'the freedom to have my own mind, wherever it's going to take me. I'm comfortable with that journey and reject the rest.' Freakier Friday is in Australian cinemas from 7 August and from 8 August in the UK and US Jamie Lee Curtis wears: (leopard look) jacket and skirt, by Rixo; T-shirt and belt, both by AllSaints; boots, by Dr Martens; tights, by Wolford; (tartan look) suit, by Vivienne Westwood, from tights, by Wolford; shoes, by By Far. Fashion stylist: Avigail Collins at Forward Artists. Set stylist: Stefania Lucchesi at Saint Luke Artists. Hair: Sean James at Aim Artists. Makeup: Erin Ayanian Monroe at Cloutier Remix.
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Beyoncé reunites Destiny's Child at final Cowboy Carter show
Destiny's Child have reunited for the first time in seven years for the grand finale of Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter tour in Las trio surprised fans with a medley of some of their best-loved songs, including Lose My Breath and Rowland and Michelle Williams also joined Beyoncé for a rendition of her 2022 hit, Energy. The chart-topping group went their separate ways in 2006, but have previously reunited during Beyoncé's half-time performance at the Super Bowl in 2013 and at her Coachella headline slot in 2018. After the show on Saturday, Beyoncé shared a photo of the trio, dressed in gold jumpsuits, on her Instagram without a caption. Fans were treated to several guest performances throughout the Vegas show, with Beyoncé bringing out her husband Jay-Z and country singer Shaboozey for brief Ivy, Beyoncé's daughter, also made an appearance. The 13-year-old has been a fixture of her mother's shows throughout the performance in Las Vegas was the 32nd and final of her Cowboy Carter tour, which also saw her perform in her hometown of Houston, Texas in three-hour rodeo extravaganza has been praised for its high energy and artistry. It takes its name from Beyoncé's 2024 album Cowboy Carter, which was met with critical acclaim, including taking the top album prize at this year's Grammy show has broken ticket records at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London and Stade De France in Paris.
