Bill Cosby Claims He ‘Never Stopped Being a Father’ to the Late Malcolm-Jamal Warner

Disgraced comedy icon Bill Cosby is mourning his late Cosby Show co-star Malcolm-Jamal Warner, whom he considered to be a son both on and off the screen.  

On Sunday, Warner, who played the Huxtable family’s only son Theodore on The Cosby Show, died at the age of 54 in a drowning accident while on a family vacation at Playa Cocles in Limón Province, Costa Rica. Warner’s sudden passing sent shockwaves through the TV comedy industry, as fans and co-stars alike have spent the beginning of this week grieving the late actor and celebrating his contributions to the craft. Among the many mourners of the TV icon is Cosby, who claims that, despite his own public fall from grace due to a 2018 conviction for sexual assault that was later overturned, he and Warner maintained a close relationship and talked regularly.  

In an interview with ABC News, Cosby said, “Malcolm calls here regularly,” saying of the entire cast of Huxtable kids from The Cosby Show, “While I was their TV dad, I never stopped being a father to them.”  

“He was always a great studier, and I enjoyed working with him very much,” Cosby told ABC News in a phone interview about the passing of Warner, saying of the late actor’s approach to work on The Cosby Show, “He was very professional. He always knew his part. He always knew his lines, and he always knew where to go.”

Meanwhile, Cosby’s official spokesperson, Andrew Wyatt, told PEOPLE that Cosby said the news of Warner’s passing “reminded him of the same call he received when his son died.” Wyatt said of Warner’s relationship with Cosby leading up to his passing, “He had just done a concert in Minnesota and called Mr. Cosby and talked about it. They spoke all the time. He said, ‘Malcolm was changing humanity.’”

Warner may not have publicly discussed his allegedly close relationship with Cosby in his final years, but he certainly considered The Cosby Show to be a landmark series, professionally, personally and politically. “The show shed light on the previously ignored Black middle class, which has always existed,” Warner told PEOPLE in 2023. “People in Cliff and Claire’s generation were often the first in their families to ever go to college, many of them becoming doctors and lawyers, like Barack and Michelle Obama. There’s even an argument that the show laid the groundwork for having a Black President of the United States.”  

Warner is survived by his wife and his daughter.