‘The Cosby Show’ alum and his wife shared one daughter together
Credit: CBS Mornings; Malcolm-Jamal Warner/Instagram
NEED TO KNOW
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Malcolm-Jamal Warner’s widow revealed the reason the late actor changed his mind about expanding their family
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During an emotional interview with CBS Mornings co-anchor Gayle King, Tenisha Warner shared the heartwarming reason her late husband decided to start a family with her
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The Cosby Show alum died at 54 in an accidental drowning while on a family vacation in Costa Rica
On the one-year anniversary of his death, Malcolm-Jamal Warner‘s widow revealed the reason the late actor changed his mind about expanding their family.
During an emotional interview with CBS Mornings co-anchor Gayle King, Tenisha Warner shared the heartwarming reason her late husband decided to start a family with her. The loving mom shares a 9-year-old daughter with The Cosby Show alum, who died at 54 after an accidental drowning during a family vacation in Costa Rica on July 20, 2025.
“I thought, if he never wants children, this is not my person. But, you know, everybody I’ve been with up until then wasn’t my person, and that was okay and so I was open to whatever that might turn into,” she recalled about the early days of their relationship. “We had never talked about a child again. And then six months later, he came to me and said, ‘Do you want to start a family?’ ”
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King then asked her, “So what did you think when he said that knowing that before he had been resistant?”
“I said, ‘Yes.’ Yeah, I said, ‘Yes’ And, you know, of course, curious,” Tenisha replied. “He said to me that he knew that, even if things didn’t work out, that I would be the woman he would want raising his child. And so for him, it was like, even if this doesn’t work out, like I know you would be such a wonderful mother.”
The emotional interview has been released after Tenisha took legal action against Malcolm-Jamal’s mother, Pamela Warner as trustee of the family trust, over alleged unpaid debts.
“For the last year, I have attempted to privately settle my beloved husband’s complicated estate and honor his last wishes,” she said in a statement shared with PEOPLE following her legal actions in California’s Superior Court. “Malcolm had every intention to provide for our 9-year-old daughter and me.”
“He was close to finalizing a new estate plan to replace the stale plan created in 1996 when he was 26 years old, 20 years before we met and well before we gave birth to our beautiful daughter,” she continued. “I have been struggling to care for our daughter as a single mom and now as her sole provider. Legally, I had no choice but to take action to protect our rights before any potential statute of limitations expired.”
Credit: Santiago Felipe/Getty; CBS
While speaking to CBS Mornings before filing the lawsuit, Tenisha didn’t give a clear answer when Gayle King asked her if she still kept in touch with Pamela.
“Yeah…” Tenisha replied. “Right now, everybody — all of his family members and everyone who has lost him — they are grieving. You know, it’s been the biggest loss for all of us. Right now, my daughter and I are just like….”
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King then interjected, “You guys are a unit.”
“Yeah,” Tenisha continued. “It’s … the emotional capacity that I have can be very limited sometimes, you know? And so, I have to, for myself, decide, ‘What do I have to give right now in this moment?’ And whatever I have to give, the first person to get that is my daughter. And then the second is myself.”
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