Geoffrey Owens Opens Up About “Middle-Class Actor” Struggles

The Cosby Show actor Geoffrey Owens spoke candidly about his struggles to find work as an actor in a recent radio interview.

Six years after he was spotted working at a Trader Joe’s grocery store in New Jersey, actor Geoffrey Owens sat down for an interview to share more about his difficulties as a “middle-class actor”. Owens was a guest on “The Big Tigger Morning Show”, aired on the V-103 radio station in Atlanta, Georgia. The Cosby Show alum revealed that after the photos of him working at the store taken by a shopper were published, he left his position.

“I quit Trader Joe’s actually before the news hit,” Owens said. “It was strange because someone had been in the store taking pictures. … And I was like, well now that this is breaking, I’m not going to feel comfortable working in this store wondering who’s around with a camera. It’s gonna be just too weird. I’m a very private person.” The photos, published by the tabloid Daily Mail and by Fox News, were regarded as “job shaming” by observers. 

But Owens would also receive heavy support from celebrities, including director Tyler Perry, who offered him a role in his OWN drama series The Have and The Have Nots. Big Tigger mentioned that his residual checks from The Cosby Show must’ve been good, to which the actor replied they weren’t, given that his role as Elvin Tibideux meant that “I did maybe 20% of the show.”

“People have a false you impression of what the average, what I call middle-class actor makes and their ability to make a living in the industry,” the 63-year-old continued. “So that’s what drove me to work at Trader Joe’s to begin with. Honestly, I’m not much better off now than I was then.” Owens has appeared on the CBS sitcom Poppa’s House and is currently promoting the holiday movie Mr. Santa: A Christmas Extravaganza, which he stars in with comedian Tommy Davidson.

The actor also shared how he was gifted $25,000 by rapper Nicki Minaj, which he wound up donating to the Entertainment Community Fund (formerly the Actors Fund) in honor of the late actor Earle Hyman, who played Russell Huxtable, Bill Cosby’s father on the NBC sitcom. When his revelation was met with surprise, he replied that

“at the time, it seemed like the right thing to do.”

Watch the interview above.

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