‘Cosby Show’ and ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ Star Says He’s Struggling to Make Ends Meet as a ‘Middle Class Actor’

Geoffrey Owens has played Elvin Tibideaux, Donovan McNabb and Tiger Woods on some of TV’s most popular sitcoms, but that’s still not a living in the entertainment industry.

In 2018, Owens went viral after a fan spotted him working at Trader Joe’s and posted a picture of the Cosby Show star and fan-favorite It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia guest actor on Twitter, prompting gossip sites to gawk at the reality of a recognizable entertainer working a perfectly normal, non-show-business job. Owens, the son of the late New York Congressman Major Owens and a cum laude graduate of Yale University, suffered one of the ugliest and most off-base “job-shamings” in social media history as mean-spirited a-holes laughed at him for working what they considered to be a demeaning gig despite his perceived success on smash-hit sitcoms.

Today, Owens is still looking to pick up more shifts at TJ’s — a normal thing that thousands upon thousands of normal adults do across America — and he recently told Atlanta radio station V-103 of his financial situation, “I struggle every day to make my ends meet, and people can’t get their heads around that because they see me in movies.”

Sadly, Owens revealed that, after the photo of him running the checkout line at Trader Joe’s went viral, he quit the job for fear that the viral post would bring unwanted attention to the ordinary, respectable grocery store gig. “I quit. It wasn’t that I quit knowing I’d be making a lot of money soon or anything,” Owens explained. “I just felt like I wasn’t going to be able to handle that scrutiny, that kind of attack on my privacy. But Trader Joe’s was a wonderful job.”

“People have the impression, ‘You’re making a lot of money. What’s the problem? Why are you having financial troubles?’” Owens said of the online reaction to seeing such a recognizable actor working a normal day job. “They don’t understand the specifics of how my industry works.” 

As for the fans who assumed that his Cosby Show residuals would have set him up for life, Owens revealed that, even before streaming, supporting actors like himself weren’t exactly making Bill Cosby money. Owens pointed out that he was in “maybe 20 percent” of all Cosby Show episodes — and, crucially, the show suffered a steep fall from grace around the time of the infamous viral photo in 2018. “The show went away for a while,” Owens understated of his old boss and co-star's “controversies.” Owens concluded of his residuals income, “People have a false impression of what the average middle-class actor makes and their ability to make a living in the industry.” 

Nevertheless, Owens never let the gawking assholes of the internet get him down. “At first, there was some negative stuff about basically the job shaming. A ‘Where is he now?’ kind of thing,” Owens said of the viral incident. “But then, very soon after that, there was all this support and encouragement from all over the world.”

Among those supporters were Tyler Perry, who immediately offered Owens a role on his drama series The Haves and the Have Nots following the viral story, and rapper Nicki Minaj gifted Owens a check for $25,000, which he immediately donated to charity. “It was a very generous, lovely handout,” Owens said of Minaj’s offering. “But I wasn’t comfortable with that.”

Clearly, Owens doesn’t consider working for a living to be some sort of horrible affliction, but he wants to know that he can cover the “living” part with his work. Thankfully, fans interested in helping Owens and putting him to work can hire him to shoot a personal video on Cameo. Who doesn’t want a birthday greeting from Don Cheadle?