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Malcolm-Jamal Warner’s mother clarifies false details about son’s drowning

AnyFans 2025-09-20

By Inga Parkel

Malcolm-Jamal Warner’s mother, Pamela, has opened up for the first time about the actor’s devastating death.

Warner, best known for his role as Theodore Huxtable on The Cosby Show, tragically drowned in July while on a family vacation in Costa Rica. He was 54.

Sitting down with ABC’s Robin Roberts in a recent interview, which aired Tuesday, Pamela clarified the details and circumstances surrounding her son’s death.

“They were in the water, I think maybe chest-deep at, even at that,” she explained. “Maybe waist-deep. There was an undertow and my son was not an experienced swimmer. He did not know how to deal with an undertow.”

Debunking earlier reports that said Warner entered the water attempting to save his eight-year-old daughter, Pamela clarified: “She was on shore. She was not in the water.”

She explained that Warner had been in the water with another man, who was also dragged under but managed to pull himself out. “He was a more experienced swimmer, but Malcolm was not,” Pamela said.

The Costa Rican Red Cross previously said it responded to a “water-related” incident involving two males at the Playa Grande resort in Cahuita, Limón.

When medics arrived, they “attended” to both men. While one was rushed to a local Limón clinic in critical condition, the other, Warner, was given CPR before being pronounced dead at the scene, the organization said. Warner’s official cause of death was asphyxia, Costa Rican National Police later confirmed.

While Pamela described Warner’s death as an “indescribable pain,” she told Roberts that she’s “at peace with everything that happened.”

“That was his time,” she said. “That was the manner in which he was to transition, and this is what I believe and what I feel.”

Warner’s widow, whom he married in 2017, also broke her silence over his death in a heart-rending Instagram post shared Sunday.

Identifying herself for the first time, Tenisha Warner wrote: “Tomorrow marks our anniversary — and my heart is wide open. For the first time, I’m sharing a glimpse of the love that began it all. I can still hear my husband’s laugh, still feel the way he made room for every part of me — every tear, every dream.”

She announced that she and their daughter — whose name has not been shared publicly — were partnering with an organization called River & Ember, which aims to help parents assist their children through difficult emotions such as grief.

“Today, in his honor, my daughter and I are launching River & Ember and officially opening The Warner Family Foundation,” Tenisha said. “Together we carry the legacy my husband and I began — one that nurtures children’s inner light and gives young artists the freedom to create outside the lines. This is love, Still moving. Still making. Still carrying us forward.”