‘It was an undescribable pain’: Pamela Warner reveals new details about her son Malcolm-Jamal Warner’s death

Pamela Warner, Malcolm-Jamal Warner’s mother, reflects on grief, turning pain into purpose, and her son’s legacy.

Pamela Warner still remembers the exact moment she learned her son, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, had died. Specifically, the scream that emerged “from the bottom of [her] soul” and that had her neighborhood running to check on her. 

“What came up and what came out was huge,” she said. “It was an indescribable pain that resonated through my body.”

In an exclusive interview with “Good Morning America’s” Robin Roberts, Warner reflected on her son’s death and the grief that followed. She also clarified details surrounding the tragedy, which conflicting reports had clouded. Warner explained that Malcolm-Jamal Warner’s wife and daughter had been in Costa Rica as part of an immersion program for their daughter’s homeschooling. Like many of the fathers and husbands in the program, the actor joined his family for the last week of the program, which was supposed to be “the fun part.”

While early accounts suggested Warner had drowned while swimming with his daughter during a family trip to Costa Rica, his mother said that wasn’t the case. Warner confirmed that the “Cosby Show” actor was swimming with a friend at the time of the accident. 

“They were in the water, I think maybe chest-deep at, even at that. Maybe waist-deep,” she said. “There was an undertow and my son was not an experienced swimmer. He did not know how to deal with an undertow. She was on shore. She was not in the water.”

For Pamela Warner, the physical facts only tell part of the story.

“That’s the physical part,” she said. “But the spiritual part is: that was his time. That was the manner in which he was to transition, and this is what I believe and what I feel.”

Despite the depth of her loss, Warner said she has found peace.

“I’m very grateful that I was chosen to be his mother,” she said. “I think more than anything, I’m at peace with everything that happened. There was nothing left on the table. There was no shoulda, coulda, woulda. I don’t have that. I feel that our journey together as mother and son was complete.”

Now, Warner says her focus is on carrying forward her son’s legacy. Warner and her daughter-in-law, Tanisha, have expressed plans to honor the late actor’s commitment to supporting young talent with the Malcolm-Jamal Warner Foundation and Rive & Ember. 

“I would like for [people to] continue to support his legacy and support the MJW Living Legacy [Instagram] page,” she urged. “And love when you can. Give when you can. Just be better because that’s what he wanted. That’s what he was working towards.”