Malcolm-Jamal Warner's good friend Candace Kelley is trying again on her fond recollections and moments with the late star.
“On common, Malcolm and I'd textual content each different day and converse a few times per week,” Kelley solely instructed Us Weekly of Warner on Wednesday, July 23.
The pair, who turned buddies two years in the past, cohosted their podcast “Not All Hood” collectively. Whereas they have been colleagues, the duo shaped a friendship exterior of the studio.
“I do know in regards to the pipe that busted in his home, and he is aware of what I simply had for lunch,” she defined. “It's like these little issues, [when] you're actually, actually concerned in somebody's life, greater than only a working relationship.”
Kelley shared that she and Warner spoke days earlier than his demise. (The actor died on Sunday, July 20, after drowning whereas in Costa Rica. He was 54.)
“I spoke to him on Friday earlier than he left … he wrote me this lengthy, five-paragraph e-mail from the aircraft, which is so unusual. I'm like ‘[You're going to] Costa Rica,'” she instructed Us. “However now that I'm going again to studying it, I'm very glad he did.”
In a single dialog, Kelley and Warner have been discussing plans to file a dwell present for his or her podcast, which was set to have Isaac Hayes III as a visitor.
Malcolm Jamal Warner, Candace Kelley Courtesy of Candace Kelley
As a detailed confidant, Kelley received to know a aspect of Warner that the general public didn't see: a doting father. (Warner and his spouse shared a daughter. Their identities haven't been publicly revealed.)
“This was the man who's like, ‘I gotta go. My daughter's received her large occasion,'” Kelley recalled. “He wasn't Malcolm. He was simply dad, a easy welcoming committee beholden to her.”
Whereas Warner saved his household out of the highlight, Kelley received the pleasure of attending to know his spouse and daughter.
“After some time, we talked a lot like we're all household at this level. [His] daughter would are available, and he or she would render a drawing right here and there of all of us on Zoom, after which she would current the drawing,” she mirrored. “He could be so excited and so proud.”
Kelley added that Warner's household was “the sunshine of his life.”
Along with attending to know Warner as an individual, Kelley additionally noticed the affect he made on the Black group because of his groundbreaking position as Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Present.
Malcolm-Jamal Warner Courtesy of Candace Kelley
“After we would exit, you'll suppose that The Cosby Present was on immediately,” she instructed Us. “It was not solely simply, ‘Oh, my goodness, oh, can I've an image?' It was, ‘Let me clarify to you the affect that you simply had on my life, as a result of I noticed you in myself, and I'd by no means seen a Black man on TV like that ever.' So there was a number of that, a number of tears, pleasure and pleasure, as a result of these have been individuals who have been happy with him too.”
Kelley added that Warner continued to hold a “torch” for uplifting members of his group.
“That's the reason you're not going to see him [in roles] as a drug supplier, a rapist. There are elements he would flip down,” she mentioned. “He had a severe dedication to his group and to his household and to his personal private legacy of what was proper from improper, to ensure that the tropes of Black folks which have been on the market that he used his energy to stamp them out.”
That philosophy was one of many inspirations for Kelley and Warner's podcast.
Hollywood is mourning The Cosby Present actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who died on Sunday, July 20, at age 54. Information of Warner's demise surprised and devastated his buddies and colleagues, lots of whom shared tributes to the late star through social media on Monday, July 21. Tracee Ellis Ross, who starred on the BET sequence Reed […]
“Forty-seven million Black of us in America, all of the tales are usually not the identical. We aren't a monolith. Let's go hear a few of these tales, apart from those that we constantly see represented on TV,” she mentioned of her and Warner's goal. “There's a stronghold of the kind of drama sequence, particularly, that appears just about the identical — gangsters, drug sellers, and so they're very well-written, don't get me improper — and we've had this dialog, but it surely was a giant no to him. He mentioned, ‘We might do so much higher.'”
Kelley and the “Not All Hood” staff are placing on an occasion Friday, July 25, to honor Warner's legacy, aptly named “Malcolm Left the Mic On.”
“So many individuals have been pouring in, and so they simply wish to share how he affected their lives,” she instructed Us. “We do have a line of celebrities lined up, like somebody from The Resident and Erika Alexander … however principally we're listening to from the group.”
