Geoffrey Owens: Lost Cosby Show residuals due to Bill Cosby scandal were a factor in working at Trader Joe's

TheWrap

“That was one of the many factors that contributed to my decision to take a job outside the entertainment industry,” Owens tells The Wrap. “It did not help me financially.” Reruns of The Cosby Show were pulled from various outlets after dozens of women accused Bill Cosby of rape. “The fact is, yeah, there was a certain amount of money that stopped coming in and that made a difference,” said Owens, who played the Huxtables' son-in-law, Elvin Tibideaux. Owens says the viral photo of him working at Trader Joe's has ended up becoming a "blessing in disguise." “I’m a private person,” he says. “I don’t seek the limelight, but now that it happened, I’m grateful.” In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Owens adds that he has been flooded with a "whole handful" of television offers -- and that his former Cosby Show co-stars -- including TV wife Sabrina Le Beauf -- have reached out to him. "I imagined the worst-case scenario to brace myself, and it somehow managed to be worse than I expected," he says. "The pictures of me, the words that were used to describe me, were so demeaning. It was humiliating, acutely, for a very short time — and then there was this amazing rescue from the world." ALSO: Malcolm-Jamal Warner on Owens: "What happened this past week will be the kick that his dry spell needed."