Malcolm-Jamal Warner Shares Secret to Lasting Marriage and Reflects on ‘Surreal’ Moment Watching The Cosby Show with His 8-Year-Old Daughter Before His Passing

Malcolm-Jamal Warner revealed that he married his wife in 2017.

He and his wife welcomed a daughter, who recently turned 8.

The actor opened up about his family and his decision to keep his private life to himself while on the Hot & Bothered podcast, just weeks before his death.

Malcolm-Jamal Warner offered rare insight into his marriage and fatherhood in the weeks before his death.

The actor, who died in a drowning accident at 54 on July 20, appeared on the Hot & Bothered podcast in May and opened up about building a meaningful life with his wife and daughter.

Of his wife, whom he revealed he wed in 2017, Warner shared, “At some point during this time… I was like, ‘If I’m going to have a kid, this is the person that I would want to have it with.'”

Though it was early in their relationship, Warner — who kept his wife’s identity private — said he always knew that “if something happened and we weren’t together romantically, she would still be the person that I would want to raise a child with.”

“I’ve never, never second-guessed it [since]. There was a moment where I realized when people say, ‘When you know, you know,’ that’s what that feeling is.”

He added, “We have never second-guessed it. We’ve been together almost 10 years and we have never had a fight, an argument, a raised voice or a harsh word said to one another…. And it’s not like we agree on everything.”

Elsewhere in the podcast, Warner spoke about his 8-year-old daughter, revealing they’d started watching The Cosby Show together when she was 4.

“She said, ‘That’s Papa! That’s Papa!’” he recalled of the sweet memory.

His daughter also took a shine toward costar Keshia Knight Pulliam’s character Rudy.

“For the longest time, she actually called the show Rudy’s Family,” he laughed. “The most surreal thing is, my daughter and Keshia’s daughter are just a couple months apart, and they are like this [crosses fingers]. It’s so crazy.”

Warner also credited Bill Cosby’s “vision that he wanted this to be a timeless, evergreen show.”

“Watching the show with my daughter was surreal in itself, but I also got Mr. Cosby’s… He succeeded in what his mission was. I remember again being on the show, being a teenager, wanting Theo to be cool,” recalled Warner, who previously spoke about his “painful” experience navigating the fallout from Cosby’s sexual assault allegations and conviction.

“I wanted to use the slang that we were using at the time. And he would say ‘No, that’s going to date the show. Let’s make up our own slang. So when people are watching this 25 years from now, the show will still be relevant.'”

He continued, “So I’m watching the show with my daughter and laughing and like, ‘Wow, this show is still relevant to this day.’ He had that vision that he wanted this to be a timeless, evergreen show and he succeeded.”

During the discussion, Warner also doubled down on his decision not to share his wife and daughter’s names.

“Obviously I don’t post them. I don’t, you know, I talk about them, because they are obviously the hugest parts of my life, the best parts of my life, best decisions I’ve ever made, but I like to keep them and their identity private. But I love talking about them because I want people to know that it is possible to be happy and to have love and love really be enriching,” he explained.

“I met my wife at 45, so like it’s okay to wait, you don’t have to be in your 20s … So I talk about them a lot ’cause I’m very proud of my life and that aspect of my life.”