Malcolm-Jamal Warner Was Like ‘a Real-Life Son’ to Disgraced TV Dad Bill Cosby: Source

Disgraced comic Bill Cosby has been gutted by the shock drowning death of TV son Malcolm-Jamal Warner, and friends fear the tragedy will be the end of him, the National Enquirer can reveal.

Sources say Cosby, 88, who’s been living in seclusion since his release from prison, is grieving as if he’s lost another of his own children.

“This has hit Bill extremely hard,” says an insider. “He and Malcolm were very close and spoke all the time. Malcolm called to wish Bill a happy birthday just two weeks ago. Malcolm was like a real-life son to him. Now he’s gone, just like his own boy, Ennis.”

Cosby’s only son was shot and killed in cold blood while changing a flat tire on a Los Angeles highway in 1997. He was 27.

Malcolm, 54, played Cosby’s son, Theo Huxtable, during the entire run of The Cosby Show from 1984 to 1992.

He was swimming off the coast of Costa Rica when he was apparently caught in a rip tide and swept out to sea. He was pulled from the water but efforts to resuscitate him failed.

The cause of death was determined to be asphyxiation by “submersion,” authorities said, per the New York Post. His wife and 8-year-old daughter survive him.

Sources say Malcolm’s loss may be the final nail in the coffin for Cosby, who remains holed up in his Pennsylvania mansion.

“He doesn’t leave the house and relies on his wife, Camille, for everything,” describes the insider.

Once beloved as “America’s Dad,” Cosby is virtually blind, suffers from heart issues, has few friends and no career.

After being convicted of sexual assault, he served two and a half years of a 10-year sentence for drugging and raping Andrea Constand in 2004. In 2021, his conviction was overturned on a technicality and he was released.

“Bill has long maintained his innocence and claimed he was unfairly prosecuted, but there’s still a stigma to his name,” says an insider. “His reputation has been tarnished. He will never regain his good-guy image. Those left around him fear Malcolm’s death will finally put an end to his lonely, dreary life.”