logo
"Cosby Show" Star Malcolm-Jamal Warner Dead At 54 After Drowning On A Family Trip In Costa Rica

"Cosby Show" Star Malcolm-Jamal Warner Dead At 54 After Drowning On A Family Trip In Costa Rica

Yahoo6 days ago
Malcolm-Jamal Warner, the actor who famously played Theodore Huxtable on The Cosby Show, has died at 54, according to reports on Monday.
The star's death was first reported by TMZ. People later confirmed the report. HuffPost has not independently confirmed Warner's passing but has reached out to his team for verification.
Warner was best known for playing the son of Bill Cosby's character in The Cosby Show sitcom from the 1980s before moving on to other TV gigs. Despite the many sexual misconduct allegations against Cosby, Warner expressed in 2023 that he was still 'proud of the legacy' the show built and the impact it had on 'first and foremost, Black culture.'
Carly Koltes contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
Also in Celebrity:
Also in Celebrity:
Also in Celebrity:
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Tracee Ellis Ross Rejected Oprah Winfrey Calling Her The "Poster Child For Singledom": "I Don't Want To Be That"
Tracee Ellis Ross Rejected Oprah Winfrey Calling Her The "Poster Child For Singledom": "I Don't Want To Be That"

Buzz Feed

time25 minutes ago

  • Buzz Feed

Tracee Ellis Ross Rejected Oprah Winfrey Calling Her The "Poster Child For Singledom": "I Don't Want To Be That"

Tracee Ellis Ross is reflecting on Oprah's comments about her ongoing single status. The moment came in an episode of Tracee's new series, Solo Traveling With Tracee Ellis Ross, which finds the Emmy-winning actor exploring the joys of the world as a single and childless woman. Reflecting on the freedom of solo travel, Tracee said, "So much of what traveling is about, is for me, not waiting for something in order to walk towards my life, in order to be in my life, in order to experience my life. I think that was why I took my first trip solo. And I know that in some ways — I mean, Oprah said it. She said that I'm the poster child for singledom. I don't want to be that." Instead, Tracee prefers to reframe the conversation as someone living on their own terms and not waiting for traditional things to add value and meaning to their life. "I want to be the poster child for being an inhabitant in your own skin," Tracee said. "For living in your own skin." Although some might see being single and childless at an older age as a negative, Tracee, 52, says it has afforded her a freedom and an experience that she might not have otherwise had. "Yes, I am a single Black woman who does not have children, but not having a relationship — long, long relationships — not having children has allowed me to explore things of my own humanity," she reflected. "It has deposited me here at 52 in an extraordinary experience that is filled with joy, loneliness, grief, exuberance, delight, like, literally all of it. And I feel available to it." While Tracee didn't specify when Oprah's comments occurred, they appear to be from a 2020 interview on her Your Live in Focus series, where Oprah told Tracee how many single women view her as "an example of what being an unmarried woman could and should look like." When asked if she ever imagined playing that role, Tracee laughed, "No. I, like many of us, was taught to grow up dreaming of my wedding, not of my life." She added, "I spent many years dreaming of my wedding, and also, waiting to be chosen. Well, here's the thing. I'm the chooser. And I can choose to get married if I want to, but in the meantime, I am choicefully single, happily, gloriously single." She repeated that message in a 2021 interview with Harper's Bazaar: "People are like, 'You're the poster child for being single.' And I was like, 'Great.' But what I would prefer is that I'm the poster child for living my life on my terms. And that there's a version of that for everyone. I don't live my life for other people. I just totally live it for me." You can (and should!) watch Solo Traveling With Tracee Ellis Ross now on Roku. Trust me when I say — it's great. Let me know what you think of her reflections in the comments below, too.

WWE legend expresses regret he was unable to speak to Hulk Hogan before his death
WWE legend expresses regret he was unable to speak to Hulk Hogan before his death

Fox News

timean hour ago

  • Fox News

WWE legend expresses regret he was unable to speak to Hulk Hogan before his death

WWE Hall of Famer known as Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake expressed some regret that he had been unable to see Hulk Hogan before he passed away at the age of 71. Beefcake, whose real name is Ed Leslie, spoke to TMZ Sports on Saturday about his longtime friendship with Hogan. He said he had heard whispers that "The Hulkster" had not been doing so well, and he had thought about going to Hogan's Clearwater, Florida, home to visit him. "I was going to try to go to his house a couple of days ago. My wife said, 'You should just go over there.' And I was thinking, 'Oh, my God,' but if I go to the house and they say, 'No, you can't come in,' it would have crushed me. So I didn't, and now I wish maybe that I had tried to get in and tried to get to see him before he passed," he said. Beefcake was asked what he would have told Hogan if he had had one more chance to talk to him. "I love you brother, and we were truly friends to the end," he said. Beefcake said Hogan's friendship meant everything to him and that he had helped him break into the pro wrestling business. He recalled the great lengths that Hogan had gone to, to be there for him in his own time of need. Beefcake had been in a parasailing accident in July 1990, and Hogan had made the trip to see him. "I was in a horrible accident and not expected to live. And he left his family in California. His wife was about to have a baby, his son Nick, to fly to Florida to be there, because the doctor said they didn't think I was going to make it. And he flew there to be there for me. "And when they brought me out of a drug-induced coma, and he said to me, 'Don't even think about it. Brutus, you're going to live.' And I did. And he was there for me at the moment I needed the most." Beefcake and Hogan teamed together at the very early stages of their careers. They were known as The Boulder Brothers at the time. He was known as Brutus Beefcake when he first got started in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). The two also were in the main event match for World Championship Wrestling's (WCW) Starrcade in 1994. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2019. Hogan died at a hospital on Thursday, an hour after he had had a cardiac event at his home.

Granderson: Malcolm-Jamal Warner carried a heavy load for Black America
Granderson: Malcolm-Jamal Warner carried a heavy load for Black America

Yahoo

time3 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Granderson: Malcolm-Jamal Warner carried a heavy load for Black America

There were three television characters who really mattered to me as a kid: Michael, Leroy and Theo. In elementary school, 'Good Times' was the television show that most closely resembled my family. And seeing reruns of Ralph David Carter's portrayal of a precocious young boy learning what it means to be poor, gifted and Black is what moved his Michael from fiction to family for me. By middle school, I was no longer wearing cornrows like Gene Anthony Ray, but I tried everything else to be like his character Leroy from the television show 'Fame.' For some of my classmates, the performing arts were a fun way to express themselves, and the show was inspirational. For me, it was my way out of the hood, and Leroy was the blueprint. Through the Detroit-Windsor Dance Academy, I was able to take professional dance lessons for free and ultimately earned a dance scholarship for college. But it wasn't a linear journey. Despite being gifted, I struggled academically and required summer classes to graduate from high school. That's why I connected with Theo, whose challenges in the classroom were one of the running jokes on 'The Cosby Show.' The family never gave up on him, and more importantly, he didn't stop trying. Through the jokes about his intelligence, the coming-of-age miscues (and the dyslexia diagnosis), the storylines of Theo — like those of Leroy and Michael — often reflected struggles I foolishly thought no one else was experiencing when I was growing up. It is only through distance and time are we able to see moments like those more clearly. In retrospect, the three of them were like knots I held onto on a rope I had no idea I was climbing. This is why the Black community's response to the death of Malcolm-Jamal Warner this week isn't solely rooted in nostalgia but also in gratitude. We recognize the burden he's been carrying, so that others could climb. When 'The Cosby Show' debuted in 1984, there were no other examples of a successful two-parent Black family on air. We were on television but often trauma and struggle — not love and support — were at the center of the narratives. So even though Black women had been earning law degrees since the 1800s — beginning with Charlotte E. Ray in 1872 — and Black men were becoming doctors before that, the initial response from critics was that the show's premise of a doctor-and-lawyer Black couple was not authentically Black. That narrow-minded worldview continued to hang over Hollywood despite the show's success. In 1992, after nearly 10 years of 'The Cosby Show' being No. 1 — and after the success of 'Beverly Hills Cop II' and 'Coming to America' — the Eddie Murphy-led project 'Boomerang' was panned as unrealistic because the main characters were all Black and successful. The great Murphy took on the Los Angeles Times directly in a letter for its critique on what Black excellence should look like. However, Black characters like Michael, Leroy and Theo had been taking on the media since the racist film 'The Birth of a Nation' painted all of us as threats in 1915. It could not have been easy for Warner, being the face of so much for so many at an age when a person is trying to figure out who he is. And because he was able to do so with such grace, Warner's Theo defined Blackness simply by being what the world said we were not. This sentiment is embodied in his last interview, when he answered the question of his legacy by saying: 'I will be able to leave this Earth knowing and people knowing that I was a good person.' In the end, that is ultimately what made his character, along with Leroy and Michael, so important to the Black community. It wasn't the economic circumstances or family structure of the sitcoms that they all had in common. It was their refusal to allow the ugliness of this world to tear them down. To change their hearts or turn their light into darkness. They maintained their humanity and in the process gave so many of us a foothold to keep climbing higher. YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow If it's in the news right now, the L.A. Times' Opinion section covers it. Sign up for our weekly opinion newsletter. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Solve the daily Crossword

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store