Bill Cosby pays tribute to TV son Malcolm-Jamal Warner following his death

Bill Cosby spoke out Monday to lament the loss of Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who played his TV son for eight seasons on 1980s TV hit The Cosby Show.

"He was always a great studier, and I enjoyed working with him very much," Cosby said in an interview with ABC News. "He was very professional. He always knew his part.... He always knew his lines, and he always knew where to go."

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Malcolm-Jamal Warner starred alongside Bill Cosby as father and son on 'The Cosby Show'

Warner was a young teenager when he first played the role of Theo Huxtable, one of the five children of Cosby's Dr. Cliff Huxtable and his wife Clair (Phylicia Rashad). Theo was the couple's only son in a family that also included Sondra (Sabrina Le Beauf), Denise (Lisa Bonet), Vanessa (Tempestt Bledsoe), and Rudy (Keshia Knight Pulliam).

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Cosby said that he and Warner had remained close after the show ended in 1992, wrapping up eight award-winning seasons: "Malcolm calls here regularly."

In addition, Warner went on to appear on shows such as Malcolm & Eddie, Community, Suits, The Resident, 9-1-1, and Alert: Missing Persons Unit. Warner also hosted a podcast, Not All Hood, and he was a poet and a Grammy-winning musician.

Cosby faced legal trouble in the decades after the show. The comedian denied allegations of sexual misconduct from dozens of women. While he was convicted of sexual assault in 2018, he was released on a technicality in 2021.

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Cosby's lawyer declined to share a statement with EW when reached for comment.

In addition to Cosby, Warner was mourned by the likes of Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Hudson, and Questlove, who remembered Warner as having been "a gps/lighthouse of navigating safety to adulthood" on the groundbreaking series that depicted an upper-class Black family.

"Seeing myself in every episode through his shoes: like being bad at football, wanting clothes outside of my budget, hiding things from your parents (ear piercings or weed), living in a 'respectable politics' house of jazz vs 'teen music' —-pssssh Theo being instrumental to a lion's share of gen x teens to see how a sampler worked!!! Or even singalongs at a family gathering—-him dealing with dyslexia ——he even had me think I too can get by in life surviving on 'bologna & cereal' and for the first time thinking about 'what does it mean to be an adult without depending on your parents?'——-Alot of us only had the Huxtables to vicariously live through and I was Malcolm. Meeting him on 94 was a thrill when I first got in the biz."

The Roots artist said Warner had been an early supporter of the group, and he said he was disappointed they had never collaborated as they planned.

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