logo
Malcolm-Jamal Warner Made Heartbreaking Final Instagram Posts Before Death

Malcolm-Jamal Warner Made Heartbreaking Final Instagram Posts Before Death

Yahoo4 days ago
Malcolm-Jamal Warner Made Heartbreaking Final Instagram Posts Before Death originally appeared on Parade.
News broke on Monday, July 21, that Cosby Show star Malcolm-Jamal Warner died in an accidental drowning while on a family trip.
People first reported the news, saying that the actor and his family were vacationing in Costa Rica and he drowned while swimming.
Warner's final few Instagram posts were about his podcast, a project he launched in 2024 called "Not All Hood," which he told People at the time was aiming to "explore the vast and diverse experiences of the Black community."
Warner's co-hosts were Weusi Barak and Candace Kelley, and they were all looking to break the stigma in the Black community about mental health and explore Black love and representation in the media.On July 6, Warner posted a special message in support of "Be Love" day, which was July 9. It is especially poignant in light of his tragic death.
"Our World House needs for us to BE LOVE. Our collective holistic health depends on it. In 3 days…BE LOVE DAY," wrote Warner. "Why? It's going to be actionable, inspiring, and strategic - with virtual and in-person experiences. An interactive exploration and celebration of what LOVE can do in every area of our lives, including in our collaboration to create the #BelovedCommunity. More about Be Love and Be Love Day: www.thekingcenter.org/belove."
According to The King Center website, "BE LOVE is a growing movement of courageous acts to achieve justice, which we define based on these words from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: 'Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.' BE LOVE seeks to strategically define and unleash the true power of love to unite humanity, cultivate true peace, and create the Beloved Community."
Warner also recently posted about his podcast episode about parenting. He is survived by a wife and daughter.
In addition to starring as Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show for the entirety of its run, Warner also starred on Here and Now, Malcolm & Eddie, Jeremiah, Listen Up, and Major Crimes, and he played memorable roles on Sons of Anarchy, American Horror Story, American Crime Story, and Suits.
🎬 SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox 🎬
Malcolm-Jamal Warner Made Heartbreaking Final Instagram Posts Before Death first appeared on Parade on Jul 21, 2025
This story was originally reported by Parade on Jul 21, 2025, where it first appeared.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Sekou McMiller's ‘Urban Love Suite' celebrates social dance with Jacob's Pillow world premiere
Sekou McMiller's ‘Urban Love Suite' celebrates social dance with Jacob's Pillow world premiere

Boston Globe

time31 minutes ago

  • Boston Globe

Sekou McMiller's ‘Urban Love Suite' celebrates social dance with Jacob's Pillow world premiere

With the support of NAACP Berkshires, McMiller — a Chicago-born and New York-based African Diasporic dance and music scholar/educator — immersed himself in the Berkshires' robust Afro-Latin community. He led workshops at a local elementary school and dance club. During a 'cultural exchange,' McMiller combined his own choreography with the celebratory traditions that local workshop participants offered him. McMiller incorporated some of the movement generated in this Pittsfield engagement into the new work, and it will live on in the choreography after it leaves the Berkshires. 'It's a love letter to the Black and brown communities,' McMiller said in a phone interview this week, 'the beautiful music and dance that has been created from hip-hop to samba to New York Mambo.' Advertisement So, despite the formal venue, you can expect this Jacob's Pillow performance to feel like a party. Advertisement 'Urban Love Suite' celebrates the relationships between different African diasporic communities through their dance and music traditions, 'their nuanced differences, their similarities and their shared roots from the continent of Africa,' McMiller said. To develop the work, with the support of the NAACP Berkshires, Sekou McMiller immersed himself in the Berkshires' robust Afro-Latin community. Pictured, Sekou McMiller and Friends' Sekou McMiller and Marielys Molina. Elyse Mertz The work also celebrates how a dense city can bring many cultures into close proximity, he said, creating opportunities for exchange that are unique to the urban experience. It can, as he put it, yield 'amazing fruits of music and dance.' 'Like New York City Mambo, which was done in New York, Harlem, where you had that cross pollination of Lindy Hop and jazz and tap dancers, with the Latin dancers coming directly from Cuba, but then [they] create a new way of doing the dance that only could have been done in an urban city like New York.' McMiller's point is that proximity can be challenging yet generative. You might not always be in the mood to listen to your neighbor's playlist, but after the fourth or fifth time through, you might find your hips moving to the beat, reluctantly familiar with the rhythms your neighbors prefer. McMiller, a classically trained flutist and jazz musician, is also the curator at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem. He reveres the intimate entanglement of music, movement, and social gatherings, and collaborated with music director Sebastian Natal on a score grounded in Afro-Latin jazz to be performed live alongside the dancers. 'Love Suite' draws parallels between parading traditions like Uruguayan candombe and New Orleans' second line, and layers party dances from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Chicago, and New York. It also highlights the roots of these movement forms in cultural traditions from Nigeria, Senegal, and Burkina Faso — the region the colonialist machine favored for the capture, export, and exploitation of human beings as a resource, who became the ancestors of Afro Caribbean, Afro Latin, and African American communities. Advertisement 'They're social dance in nature,' McMiller said, 'so they're not born of a studio. They're born from culture. They're born from parties. They're born from celebrations. They're born from traditions and rituals.' After noticing a lack of social dance in the Jacob's Pillow archive, artistic and executive director Pamela Tatge has made efforts to uplift dance artists working inside those traditions — with the help of her curatorial team. 'If we are charged with representing the breadth of dance in the world, to not center social dance would be a mistake,' said Tatge in a recent phone interview. It's complicated to bring these dances to the stage because social dance is a participatory art, and The Theater fosters an inherent separation between the audience and performer. McMiller is up for the challenge, and his solution: improvisation in both music and dance. 'It's call and response from beginning to end. I allow my choreography to be a call to the dancers to then respond … so at some point you won't be able to tell the difference between improv and choreography,' McMiller explained. 'So every night, it's same format, different show.' 'Love Suite' will also disrupt the performer-observer relationship by dancing among the audience and inviting attendees onto the stage. Performance is a call too, that asks the audience to respond. 'I hope this pushes people to get out there and come join us,' McMiller said, 'to not just spectate with us, but become an active participant in this life.' Advertisement URBAN LOVE SUITE At Jacob's Pillow's Ted Shawn Theatre, Becket, July 30 to Aug. 3. Tickets start at $65. 413-243-0745, Sarah Knight can be reached at sarahknightprojects@

Malcolm-Jamal Warner carried a heavy load for Black America
Malcolm-Jamal Warner carried a heavy load for Black America

Los Angeles Times

time31 minutes ago

  • Los Angeles Times

Malcolm-Jamal Warner carried a heavy load for Black America

There were three television characters who really mattered to me as a kid: Michael, Leroy and Theo. In elementary school, 'Good Times' was the television show that most closely resembled my family. And seeing reruns of Ralph David Carter's portrayal of a precocious young boy learning what it means to be poor, gifted and Black is what moved his Michael from fiction to family for me. By middle school, I was no longer wearing cornrows like Gene Anthony Ray, but I tried everything else to be like his character Leroy from the television show 'Fame.' For some of my classmates, the performing arts were a fun way to express themselves, and the show was inspirational. For me, it was my way out of the hood, and Leroy was the blueprint. Through the Detroit-Windsor Dance Academy, I was able to take professional dance lessons for free and ultimately earned a dance scholarship for college. But it wasn't a linear journey. Despite being gifted, I struggled academically and required summer classes to graduate from high school. That's why I connected with Theo, whose challenges in the classroom were one of the running jokes on 'The Cosby Show.' The family never gave up on him, and more importantly, he didn't stop trying. Through the jokes about his intelligence, the coming-of-age miscues (and the dyslexia diagnosis), the storylines of Theo — like those of Leroy and Michael — often reflected struggles I foolishly thought no one else was experiencing when I was growing up. It is only through distance and time are we able to see moments like those more clearly. In retrospect, the three of them were like knots I held onto on a rope I had no idea I was climbing. This is why the Black community's response to the death of Malcolm-Jamal Warner this week isn't solely rooted in nostalgia but also in gratitude. We recognize the burden he's been carrying, so that others could climb. When 'The Cosby Show' debuted in 1984, there were no other examples of a successful two-parent Black family on air. We were on television but often trauma and struggle — not love and support — were at the center of the narratives. So even though Black women had been earning law degrees since the 1800s — beginning with Charlotte E. Ray in 1872 — and Black men were becoming doctors before that, the initial response from critics was that the show's premise of a doctor-and-lawyer Black couple was not authentically Black. That narrow-minded worldview continued to hang over Hollywood despite the show's success. In 1992, after nearly 10 years of 'The Cosby Show' being No. 1 — and after the success of 'Beverly Hills Cop II' and 'Coming to America' — the Eddie Murphy-led project 'Boomerang' was panned as unrealistic because the main characters were all Black and successful. The great Murphy took on the Los Angeles Times directly in a letter for its critique on what Black excellence should look like. However, Black characters like Michael, Leroy and Theo had been taking on the media since the racist film 'The Birth of a Nation' painted all of us as threats in 1915. It could not have been easy for Warner, being the face of so much for so many at an age when a person is trying to figure out who he is. And because he was able to do so with such grace, Warner's Theo defined Blackness simply by being what the world said we were not. This sentiment is embodied in his last interview, when he answered the question of his legacy by saying: 'I will be able to leave this Earth knowing and people knowing that I was a good person.' In the end, that is ultimately what made his character, along with Leroy and Michael, so important to the Black community. It wasn't the economic circumstances or family structure of the sitcoms that they all had in common. It was their refusal to allow the ugliness of this world to tear them down. To change their hearts or turn their light into darkness. They maintained their humanity and in the process gave so many of us a foothold to keep climbing higher. YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow

Is Leah Williamson in a relationship?
Is Leah Williamson in a relationship?

Cosmopolitan

timean hour ago

  • Cosmopolitan

Is Leah Williamson in a relationship?

Leah Williamson, footballer and captain of the England women's national team, has long sparked dating rumours with Elle Smith, an American model and former Miss USA winner. From sweet holiday snaps to celebrating her football wins together, the 28-year-old and her beau have somewhat soft-launched their relationship on Instagram over the last few months. However, from what we, and other social media sleuths (see: fans of the pair), can see, they're yet to actually make it 'official.' So, let's take a deep dive into their rumoured relationship, including some of the sweetest moments so far... Last month, Elle took to her Instagram to share snippets of her Majorcan holiday with her 127K followers. While many shots showed off her summer fits and stunning views of the Spanish island, a couple of pics saw the pair looking super loved up. Case in point: slide 3 caught Leah and Elle on a paddleboard together, while slide 17 saw Elle snap a candid pic of the footballer dressed up and heading out for dinner. Leah also posted snaps of the getaway — where they were celebrating Elle's birthday — which included a gorgeous photo of the pair at dinner. A selfie of the two was featured in the carousel too, which saw Leah and Elle sunkissed and smiling. Elle commented on the holiday roundup: "same time next year?" to which Leah responded: "yes please x." Err, cute. Back in May, Elle posted a black and white shot of her cuddling Leah, who was sitting on her lap. Leah was clutching a medal and wearing an England shirt following her team's 6-0 win against Portugal. The post also included footage of the match, in which Elle could be heard cheering on the team. Leah commented on the post: "We did it!" Even earlier in March, Elle posted a video of her and Leah floating in the ocean on a paddleboard. Leah appeared to be lying down and resting her head on Elle's legs, as they had a sweet, intimate chat. Elle accompanied the post with the caption: "happy birthday my love x." Leah responded with the cutest emojis: "🥰🤭🧜‍♀️." Interestingly, this Insta post sparked 'official' comments from fans, with one person writing: "The mother of hard launches!" Others said: "So happy for you!" while another person said they were the "cutest" together. Officially obsessed with these two.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store