It was reported Monday (July 21) that beloved actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner passed away at the age of 54. There are reports that he was on vacation in Costa Rica with his family at the time.

As we grapple with the loss of someone who has been such a staple on the silver screen, and in recent years, created a platform to uplift the Black experience, including through his podcast, Not All Hood, we wanted to highlight one of the things that brought him great joy, and that’s being a husband and father. Warner, who kept his family life private, was married and had a daughter, who is about seven years old. Despite not posting them online or attending red-carpet events with them, he delivered some beautiful insights into his love for them and how he went from believing that marriage and fatherhood weren’t for him, only to find that they would be the things that would bring the greatest joy to his life.

“There is a genuine joy and happiness in our marriages that I may not have necessarily had had I gotten married and started a family earlier,” Warner shared on his podcast last June about relating to his friends as husbands and fathers during a conversation with actor Lamman Rucker. “I know me at my level of maturation…there is almost a relief that I waited as long as I did to get married and start a family. So that’s a wonderful conversation to have amongst my comrades.”

The actor found a lot of satisfaction in knowing that he did things in his own time, and that it was the right time, despite it being later in life. His partner came around while he was working on himself. He was 45 years old when they were introduced.

“I met my wife through a mutual friend,” he told Melyssa Ford on her Hot & Bothered podcast this past spring. Because I was on this hiatus, I was like, I’m not really dating. Our mutual friend was like, ‘one date won’t hurt. She could be a really cool friend or really cool spiritual connect.’”

That advice would be a gamechanger.

“I remember our first date I was like, ‘I’m at peace with not having kids. I’m probably not going to have kids.’ During this period of time, doing all this self-reflection and whatnot, I thought maybe the next chapter of my life is something bigger than marriage and family. So I was ok with that. So our first date I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m probably not going to have kids and she said, ‘I’m definitely going to have kids.’”
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He thought that huge difference in stances on their future would certainly mean they weren’t a match. They enjoyed each other’s company and ended up building a friendship that left him more comfortable than he’d ever been because he could be candid. “I didn’t have concerns about the way she might think about me because we were just hanging out.”

But something shifted, and five and a half months later he asked his future wife, “What do you think about starting a family?” That was when the two set out for something deeper.

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“At some point, I was like, if I’m going to have a kid, this is the person that I would want to have it with,” he said. “I also realized that if something happened and we weren’t together romantically, she would still be the person I would want to raise a child with, co-parent with.”

Soon after, they were expecting. “It’s so funny because my daughter will say, she already knew, and my daughter is six, she already knew, she was just waiting for us to decide,” he said on Not All Hood. I will repeat, she’s six years old.”

Together for almost a decade, Warner said settling down and starting this special chapter was something he never second-guessed.

“There was a moment I realized, when people say, ‘when you know you know,’ that’s what that feeling is,” he told Ford. “I had always heard that, and being in long-term relationships for so much of life, I always felt like ok, that’s a cool concept. But I had that experiential knowledge of when you know you know. This is it.”

The two, he said, never had a fight or talked harshly to one another. “It’s not like we agree on everything. She’s Black and Puerto Rican, so it’s not like she’s incapable of the smoke,” he said. “I see her with her family, the smoke is there. The spice is there. But I think because we met later in life, we’ve just always been at a point where we have a way of communicating like adults.”

“I talk about my wife and daughter but obviously I don’t post them. I talk about them because they are obviously the hugest parts of my life, the best parts of my life, the best decisions I’ve ever made, but I also like to keep them and their identity private.” Warner added.

“But I also feel, I love talking about them because I want people to know that it’s possible to be happy and to have love and love really be enriching. I met my wife at 45. It’s ok to wait. You don’t have to be in your 20s looking for your soulmate when you don’t really know who the f–k you are. So I talk about them because I’m very proud of my life, and especially that aspect of my life, and for so long, people were like he’s a womanizer. He’s never going to settle down. No, I did it when it was right. I did it the right way.”

Our thoughts are with Warner’s wife, daughter and loved ones during this difficult time