The Cosby Present star Phylicia Rashad paid tribute to her late onscreen son, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, on the 2025 Emmy Awards.
Taking to the stage in Los Angeles' Peacock Theatre throughout the Sunday, September 14 ceremony, Rashad, 77, launched the night's ‘In Memoriam' phase which acknowledged late Hollywood stars together with Warner, who died throughout a Costa Rica trip on July 20. Warner was 54 years outdated.
Rashad portrayed Clair Huxtable on the Eighties sitcom, whereas Warner performed Clair's son, Theodore Huxtable. The Emmys tribute served as Rashad's first public acknowledgment of Warner's loss of life.
“He was a beloved teenager in an iconic tv collection who the world watched develop into manhood, and like all our buddies and colleagues who transitioned this previous 12 months, Malcolm Jamal-Warner stays in our hearts,” Rashad informed the gang. “Tonight, as is custom on the Emmys, we keep in mind them not only for their immense expertise, but in addition for the way in which they made us imagine in one thing greater: the very best that's inside us.”
Rashad continued, “Though they could not be with us, we will all smile realizing that their influence will stay, realizing that their lasting impressions will proceed to stay on via story. Figuring out that they touched our lives.”
A star on the NBC collection, which ran from 1984 to 1992, Warner's loss of life rocked the business when information broke on July 21. The actor drowned off a seaside close to Cocles in Costa Rica's Limón someday prior, with ABC Information confirming the incident through Costa Rican Nationwide Police on the time.
Phylicia Rashad Raymond Corridor/GC Photographs
Us Weekly confirmed through the police division that the incident occurred “between 2:00 p.m. and a couple of:30 p.m. within the Playa Grande de Cocles space of Puerto Viejo de Limón.” Us beforehand reported on July 23 that Warner's physique was launched from the morgue.
The official explanation for loss of life was dominated as asphyxia, per reporting by ABC Information on the time. The Cleveland Clinic describes asphyxia as the results of not getting “sufficient oxygen,” with causes together with drowning.
Malcolm-Jamal Warner Santiago Felipe/Getty Photographs
Upon studying of Warner's loss of life, a number of Cosby Present forged members took to social media to share their grief. Invoice Cosby, who portrayed Clair's husband and Theo's father, Cliff Huxtable, all through the collection spoke out about Warner's loss of life in an announcement.
Talking to Us through his rep on July 21, Cosby stated the information was “devastating” and reminded him of when he acquired a telephone name whereas filming The Cosby Present, which revealed that his personal son, Ennis, had died. (Ennis died on the age of 27 in 1997 throughout a failed theft try.)
Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Phylicia Rashad in 1987 Ron Galella/Ron Galella Assortment through Getty Photographs
“Malcolm was altering the world, humanizing the world via his performing, his music, his poetry and even his new podcast … You by no means heard something damaging concerning the little one actors from The Cosby Present,” Cosby's rep, Andrew Wyatt, shared on behalf of Cosby on the time. “No medication, no alcohol, none of that. Though I used to be their TV dad, I by no means stopped being their father determine.”
