One year after the tragic drowning death of actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner, his widow, Tenisha Warner, has filed a lawsuit against his mother, Pamela Warner, who oversees his trust. The lawsuit, filed in DeKalb County Superior Court in Decatur, Georgia, seeks more than $1.2 million in owed funds.

Background

Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who came to fame playing Theodore Huxtable on the popular 1980s sitcom ‘The Cosby Show,’ died on July 20, 2025, in a drowning accident while vacationing in Costa Rica. He was 54 years old at the time of his death.

According to the lawsuit, Malcolm-Jamal Warner and his wife, Tenisha, signed a prenuptial agreement on May 15, 2022, which included provisions for his wife’s financial support in the event of his death. The lawsuit claims that Pamela Warner, as successor trustee of the Warner family trust, has failed to fulfill these obligations.

The lawsuit alleges that Malcolm-Jamal Warner had agreed to purchase and maintain a term life insurance policy on his life in the amount of $1,000,000.00, naming his wife as the beneficiary, but failed to do so. Additionally, the lawsuit claims that he failed to make an agreed-upon payment to his wife of $16,000 per year on their marriage anniversaries, which would now amount to $50,542.46.

Furthermore, the lawsuit alleges that Malcolm-Jamal Warner did not maintain a Roth Individual Retirement Account for his wife with the maximum contribution per year and did not pay her a promised salary of $5,000 per month for acting as his chief of staff, amounting to $195,000.

Statement from Tenisha Warner

In a statement to CNN, Tenisha Warner said that she had attempted to privately settle her late husband’s complicated estate and honor his last wishes. She stated that her husband had every intention of providing for her and their nine-year-old daughter and was close to finalizing a new estate plan to replace the one created in 1996, before they met and had their daughter.

Unfortunately, he was unable to do so before his tragic death. Tenisha Warner said that she has been struggling to care for their daughter as a single mom and now as her sole provider, and that she had no choice but to take action to protect their rights before any potential statute of limitations expired.

Original reporting: El Paso News (HLL/CB) — read the source article.