Geoffrey Owens shared his teenage son’s reaction to the viral Trader Joe’s pictures

When Geoffrey Owens found himself the butt of jokes when pictures of him working at a Trader Joe’s in New Jersey went viral, he was concerned about how it would impact his wife and son.

Fortunately, he did not have a reason to worry as the two most important people in his life, steadfastly stood by him. In an interview with People, Owens shared the immediate aftermath of the pictures going viral.

“My wife and I were together when we saw it.It made me think of my son. I texted my son and warned him about the story breaking,” said said the Cosby Show fan favorite in the interview. “I actually apologized to him for embarrassing him, because I knew that he’s in school away from us. I knew his classmates would see it and he’d be humiliated and embarrassed. I apologized to him.”

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Owens had been working at the grocery store for more than a year, but had apparently kept that fact from his son. He has since quit due to the overwhelming attention that made it impossible to do his job.

“Even before the wave of support rolled in within an hour or two, he sent me a beautiful text back about how proud he was of me. I cried, I just broke down,” the actor admitted. “He felt the opposite of embarrassment. He was so proud that I had taken the job. It was beautiful.”

The love and encouragement from his wife and son bolstered his spirits during the tumultuous time when he was outed as an actor with a “regular” job.

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“With my wife’s support and my son’s reactions, all before the counter-reaction came in, I felt very supported and loved. Then, the encouragement from all over the world started to come in and that was unbelievable and overwhelming,” said the Yale graduate.

In the end, all of renewed attention had an overwhelmingly positive impact on Owens. When the mean girl-like headlines came out, a swell of support for Owens came from fans and Hollywood elites. One such person was Tyler Perry who offered Owens a gig on OWN’s The Have and Have Nots.

According to TMZ, Owens has accepted a 10-episode role on the show. Time will tell if more work comes Owens way as a result of this viral moment.