Geoffrey Owens is keeping it real when it comes to his financial situation. Years after gracing our screens as Elvin on “The Cosby Show,” Owens revealed in a recent interview that he still has a hard time making ends meet.
As we reported back in 2018, Owens went viral when photos of him working at Trader Joe’s made their way to the internet, sparking a massive cultural conversation about “real jobs,” the TV industry and more. In a recent interview, however, Owens gave a major update on his career, explaining that before those pics hit the internet six years ago, he had already left his position.
“I quit Trader Joe’s actually before the news hit,” Owens said while appearing on V-103 Atlanta’s Big Tigger Morning Show, promoting his new film “Mr. Santa A Christmas Extravaganza.” He continued, “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.”
He added that he didn’t quit knowing that he would “be making a lot of money soon or anything,” but just knew that he would not be able to handle the public scrutiny, referring to it as an “attack” on his privacy. He still has some serious respect for the grocery store chain as well, calling Trader Joe’s a “wonderful place” to work.
He then revealed that he still “struggles” to make a living. He shared, “I struggle every day to make my ends meet, people can’t get their heads around that because they see me in movies, whether it’s ‘Mr. Santa’ or, you know, I’m on ‘Poppa’s House’ on CBS. All the TV shows I’ve done and all that stuff.”
He added that many people have the impression that just because you’ve been on TV you make a lot of money and therefore don’t have financial troubles. “They don’t understand the specifics of how my industry works,” he explained.
Later in the interview, he even opened up about what his residual income for “The Cosby Show” looks like for him, admitting it was never “particularly wonderful” for him because he did about “20%” of the show. He added that the show “went away” for a while, referring to all of the controversy surrounding Bill Cosby and the various sexual assault allegations against him.
“People have a false impression of what the average, what I call a middle-class actor makes and their ability to make a living in the industry,” he said. “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.”