Bill Cosby is reliving trauma after the tragic death of his onscreen son, Malcolm-Jamal Warner.
Cosby’s rep said that the news of Warner’s fatal drowning in Costa Rica on Sunday reminded the comedian of his own son’s murder in 1997.
Ennis William Cosby was shot and killed during an attempted robbery while he tried to change his flat tire on a Los Angeles freeway ramp in 1997. He was 27 years old.
“[It] reminded him of the same call he received when his son died,” Bill’s rep, Andrew Wyatt, told People about how the actor is taking the news.
Wyatt said Ennis and Warner played together when they were young. He also said that Warner and Bill “spoke all the time” before his death.
“He found a way to talk about Malcolm even though he was sad,” Wyatt said of Bill.
According to Wyatt, Bill is grieving with his “Cosby Show” co-stars, including his onscreen wife, Phylicia Rashad.
“[He was] on the phone with Phylicia Rashad reminiscing about Malcolm,” Wyatt said.
The spokesperson also shared with The Post that Bill told him of his onscreen children, “While I was their TV dad, I never stopped being a father to them.”
Bill feels like “everybody’s leaving,” Wyatt told the outlet, sharing that Bill’s childhood friend also recently passed away.
Wyatt didn’t immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.
During a phone interview with CBS News’ Jericka Duncan on Monday, Bill, 88, shared that he spoke to Warner three months ago.
“He was never afraid to go to his room and study,” he recalled of Warner, who played his onscreen son, Theo Huxtable, on “The Cosby Show.”
“He knew his lines and that he was quite comfortable even with the growing pains of a being a teenager,” he continued.
Warner was on a family vacation in Costa Rica when he got swept up in a strong current, police said in a statement obtained by The Post.
Warner was pulled from the water by people in the area near Cocles, a beach in Limon, and taken to shore, where the Costa Rica Red Cross tried to revive him, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
He was 54 years old.
