Real-Life Love
Malcolm-Jamal Warner’s Wife Tenisha Speaks Out in Rare Statement After His Tragic Death
For the first time, Malcolm-Jamal Warner‘s wife, Tenisha Warner, is opening up about the love she shared with The Resident star. On September 12, one day before the couple’s wedding anniversary and nearly two months after his tragic death, Tenisha broke her silence with a rare statement.
The Cosby Show alum and Tenisha, who share a daughter, were dedicated to keeping their relationship out of the public eye. In her statement, which also included the first photo from their wedding, Tenisha revealed that she’s “sharing a glimpse of the love that began it all.”
First, Tenisha thanked everyone for “holding us in so much love during this tender time” in her Instagram post. She noted that September 13 is their wedding anniversary, and her “heart is wide open.”
She continued, “I can still hear my husband’s laugh, still feel the way he made room for every part of me — every tear, every dream. Today, 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.”
She ended her caption with, “This is love, still moving. Still making. Still carrying us forward.”
Malcolm-Jamal died on July 20 at the age of 54. He was vacationing with his family in Costa Rica when he drowned.
In a separate message, Tenisha explained that River & Ember was “born not only from knowledge as a doctor of psychology but from my own journey with grief and love. It’s about creating rituals that outlast us — the kind our children will carry as a legacy.”
Tenisha wrote fondly of her husband, calling his presence a “river — steady, sure, and always moving toward what matters. His spirit was an ember — glowing with encouragement, igniting possibility in those around him. His way of seeing the world — that children’s inner light is worth tending with care and constancy — is the heartbeat of everything we create here.”
She said River & Ember will be a “continuation of that presence he embodied,” before concluding her statement with a message to her husband: “To the river that carried us, to the ember that never goes out, your love was the first story I ever wanted to keep telling.”
