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The photo of former “The Cosby Show” star Geoffrey Owens bagging groceries at Trader Joe’s has gone viral ever since a woman named #KarmaLawrence shared it with social media. But now Lawrence says she wishes she would never have posted it. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
“I don’t know why I snuck a picture,” Lawrence told NJ.com. “I figured everybody does it. I don’t know what possessed me. I just did it. I didn’t even think about it. I just kind of did it on impulse and it was a bad impulse.”
Without pay, Lawrence then attempted to shop the picture to several media outlets. Once the photo went viral, Owens started to get shamed for his side job at Trader Joe’s. While Owens has received an immense amount of love and support from fellow actors, and execs in the industry he said he also got a lot of hate mail.
“I actually wanted to go up to him and say something, but I thought, ‘you might embarrass him,’” she continued. “But then I did something that actually embarrassed him more. I didn’t go with my first instinct, and I should’ve…So much hate. So much nastiness. Oh, it’s been terrible. They write Karma’s a b***h. It’s bad.”
If given the chance, Lawrence said she would apologize. “I would tell him, ‘I am extremely, extremely apologetic about what has happened,’” she said. “And if I could take it back, I would.” But Owens has moved on; he’s now been offered roles by #TylerPerry and told Good Morning America there’s no shame in hard work.
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“I hope what doesn’t pass is this re-thinking about what it means to work…” he said. “A reevaluation of the idea that some jobs are better than others because that’s actually not true… Every job is worthwhile and valuable, and if we have kind of a re-thinking about that because of what’s happened to me, that would be great.”
