Viral ‘Cosby Show’ actor who was forced to work at Trader Joe’s still struggling

'People have a false impression of what the average middle-class actor makes and their ability to make a living in the industry,' Geoffrey Owens says

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Published Dec 27, 2024  •  4 minute read

'Cosby Show' actor Geoffrey Owens. Photo by Getty Images

Six years after Geoffrey Owens was filmed working at a Trader Joe’s in New Jersey, The Cosby Show star says he’s still struggling to “make ends meet.”

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Owens, who played Elvin Tibideaux on the six-time Emmy-winning series from 1985 to 1992, says he’s “not much better off” now than when he was snapped working at a grocery store back in 2018.

“Even today, right now, as we speak, I still struggle to make a living,” Owens, 63, told Atlanta’s V-103 radio station in a recent interview. “I struggle every day to make my ends meet. And people can’t get their heads around that because they see me in movies.”

In August 2018, Owens went viral when a shopper recognized the actor working at the retailer and shared her photos with the Daily Mail.

“I was just in Trader Joe’s and I said to my wife, I said, ‘Wait a minute, that’s the guy from The Cosby Show,'” Karma Lawrence told the outlet.

Lawrence then looked up Owens online and saw that he was the actor that played Sondra Huxtable’s (Sabrina LeBeauf) boyfriend on the hit sitcom.

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“I pulled up a site on the Internet to look at a picture of him and said, ‘That is him,'” she said. “I have never seen him at Trader Joe’s before. I was getting a bunch of groceries and he wasn’t really looking at anybody, but he said, ‘Have a nice day.'”

Lawrence told the publication that The Cosby Show was one of her favourite programs when it was on the air.

“I would have thought after The Cosby Show he would maybe be doing something different,” she said. “It was a shock to see him working there and looking the way he did. It made me feel really bad. I was like, ‘Wow, all those years of doing the show and you ended up as a cashier.'”

Bill Cosby and Geoffrey Owens in a scene from ‘The Cosby Show.’ Photo by NBC

The pics led to Owens being job shamed when the news was picked up by various outlets with headlines that read, Cosby Show actor Geoffrey Owens spotted bagging groceries at NJ Trader Joe’s and From learning lines to serving the long line! The Cosby Show star Geoffrey Owens is spotted working as a cashier at Trader Joe’s in New Jersey.

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In the Mail’s article, they referred to Owens as having “stain marks on the front (of his T-shirt) as he weighed a bag of potatoes” and noted that he was making “around $11 an hour.”

Owens’ fellow actors rallied to his defence, with King of Queens and Everybody Loves Raymond actress Patricia Heaton asking Fox News why they were “trying to humiliate this honourable, hardworking actor?”

“When I worked on Thirtysomething, I was also summarizing depositions to pay my rent,” she tweeted at the news outlet at the time. “Shame on you!”

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L.A. Law star Blair Underwood also backed Owens on social media saying there was “no shame in good, honest, hard work.”

“He’s being a man in doing what he needs to do to provide for himself and his family. Much respect to you Sir!” Underwood tweeted.

After the Trader Joe’s photos circulated, Owens’ career bounced back as he booked a 10-episode role on Tyler Perry’s The Haves and the Have Nots and the 50-Cent produced shows Power and Power Book II: Ghost. He currently stars alongside Damon Wayans and his son Damon Wayans Jr. in Poppa’s House. 

“It’s really overwhelming, in a good way,” he told Good Morning America in September 2018 of the words of encouragement he heard in the weeks after the Trader Joe’s pics sparked a discussion about classism online. “I kind of feel like that character in that Woody Allen movie that wakes up one morning and he’s a celebrity all of a sudden … it came out of nowhere. I really want to thank everybody out there … for the incredible support, the amazing support and positivity that they’ve shown for me. It’s quite astounding.”

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The woman who took the photos also spoke out about her regret in having played a part in Owens’ job shaming.

“I don’t know why I snuck a picture,” she told NJ.com. “I figured everybody does it. I don’t know what possessed me. I just did it. I didn’t even think about it. I just kind of did it on impulse and it was a bad impulse … if I could take it back, I would.”

But in his chat with Atlanta’s V-103 earlier this month, Owens says he’s still living paycheque-to-paycheque.

“People have a false impression of what the average middle-class actor makes and their ability to make a living in the industry,” Owens said. 

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Owens said that he was forced to quit his job at Trader Joe’s after his story made headlines because he is “a very private person.”

“It wasn’t like I quit knowing I would be making a lot of money soon or anything. I just felt like I wasn’t going to be able to handle that kind of scrutiny and attack on my privacy,” he said.

After reruns of The Cosby Show were pulled following allegations of abuse involving series star Bill Cosby, Owens told PEOPLE in 2018 that the lack of residual cheques affected his livelihood.

“Yes, it impacted me financially. At the time that the show was pulled, that did make a difference in our income,” he said. “That was one of the elements that led to my getting to the place where I said to myself, ‘I have to do something,’ and I was thinking, ‘What can I do?’ and the answer ended up being Trader Joe’s … I just had to do something to support myself and my family.”

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