The widow of actor and singer Malcolm-Jamal Warner has announced the launch of two philanthropic organizations in his honor, paying tribute to her late husband in social media posts that identified her for the first time.
On Friday, the day before the eighth anniversary of their wedding, Tenisha Warner published a photo on Instagram of her and her Grammy-winning husband holding hands and laughing together on the day they got married. Some accompanying text explained that the doctor of psychology and her daughter had started the Warner Family Foundation as a young artists’ scholarship program as well as River & Ember, which is dedicated to helping deepen bonds between parents and children.
“Thank you for holding us in so much love during this tender time,” Tenisha Warner wrote. “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 term, every dream.
“In his honor, my daughter and I are launching River & Ember and officially opening the Warner Family Foundation. 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.”
Malcolm-Jamal Warner often publicly shared his pride in his wife and their daughter but had chosen to keep their identities private before his drowning death in Costa Rica in July.
At the organization’s website, Tenisha Warner wrote that River & Ember stemmed from her knowledge of psychology as well as her “personal journey with grief and love”. She said the group’s name came from the presence and spirit her late husband embodied.
Tenisha Warner called Malcolm both “a river – steady, sure and always moving toward what matters” and “an ember – glowing with encouragement, igniting possibility in those around him”.
“Your love was the first story I ever wanted to keep telling,” Tenisha Warner wrote. “And now, through River & Ember, it becomes an invitation for every family – to tend their own light, to carry their own ember forward.”
Tenisha Warner’s Instagram homage was widely applauded by users of the platform. A typical reply read: “This is such a beautiful, powerful tribute to Malcolm!”
Another read: “What a beautiful photo and continuing of his mighty legacy!”
A native of Jersey City, New Jersey, Warner and his family were vacationing in Costa Rica when a riptide ensnared him while he swam with his daughter, aged eight, off the shore of Cocles beach on 20 July.
As the New York Daily News reported, there were no lifeguards on duty at the time. Surfers in the area saw Warner and his daughter struggling and managed to get the two to shore, the Daily News recounted.
But emergency responders soon pronounced Warner dead at the scene.
Warner, 54, was perhaps best known for his role as fictional teenager Theo Huxtable on the sitcom The Cosby Show from 1984 to 1992. He earned a 1986 Emmy nomination for outstanding actor in a comedy series.
More recently, he starred on Malcolm & Eddie, its fellow sitcom Reed Between the Lines, and the medical drama The Resident.
Warner earned a 2015 best traditional R&B performance Grammy for Jesus Children. He was also nominated for a 2023 best spoken word poetry album for Hiding In Plain View – and he launched a podcast series named Not All Hood that explored the lives of Black people in the US.
“He transitioned from a teen star to a respected adult without the baggage we often from others in his generation,” Gil Robertson, the co-founder and president of the African American Film Critics Association, said to the Associated Press in July. “That’s no small feat.”
Warner’s Cosby Show co-star Phylicia Rashad – who portrayed his mother, Clair Huxtable, on the sitcom – honored him at Sunday’s Emmys at the top of the annual ceremony’s in memoriam segment by saying he “remains in our hearts”.
