Since over 50 women have come forward with accusations against Bill Cosby, syndicated reruns of “The Cosby Show” have been removed from numerous networks, including TV Land, Bounce TV and BET-owned Centric.
With the sitcomās broadcast future still up in air, Malcolm-Jamal Warner (aka Theo Huxtable) told The Huffington Post that he feels “The Cosby Show” ādeserves to return to televisionā and says previous reports of him calling the show’s legacy “tarnished” were taken out of context.
āThe legacy of the show being ātarnishedā was not my words. That was the word that the interviewer used,ā he told HuffPost. āThe legacy could never really be tarnished, because there are generations of young people who went to college and became doctors and lawyers because of āThe Cosby Showā and āA Different World.āā
Cosby’s arrest on December 30, which Warner called “surprising,” also leaves some to question whether the legal proceedings will affect the show’s availability on streaming platforms such as Hulu.
No matter what, Warner believes that the long-running NBC sitcom has influenced black families over the years.
āThere are so many young people who have gotten married and had families and are loving parents who communicate well with their kids because of that show,ā he said. āSo all of the good that show has done that can never be reversed — that can never be taken away.”