For her part, Lawrence says she is sorry about her involvement in the whole debacle. And because Twitter is undefeated when it comes to outing a person’s identity, she was herself shamed online for what some people saw as her attempting to shame Owens.
“So much hate. So much nastiness. Oh, it’s been terrible,” “They write ‘Karma’s a b*itch.’ It’s bad,” Lawrence said in an interview with NJ Advance Media. She has since deleted her social media accounts.
The 50-year-old grandmother claims she never meant any harm by taking the pictures and is in fact a fan.
“When I saw him working there I thought maybe because of everything with Bill Cosby that his residuals got cut. And people have to take a normal job. But I didn’t think anything bad about it. I work a normal job,” said Lawrence.
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“I actually wanted to go up to him and say something, but I thought, you might embarrass him. But then I did something that actually embarrassed him more. I didn’t go with my first instinct, and I should’ve. I should’ve,” she continued.
Lawrence says she was not paid a dime for the pictures and she would like to apologize to Owens. “I am extremely, extremely apologetic about what has happened. And if I could take it back, I would,” she said.
A Stream of Support
After the avalanche of job-shaming headlines, Owens got an even bigger surprise: a giant surge of support from long-time fans, Hollywood colleagues, and complete strangers. Owens, who has taught at Yale and co-starred in numerous television programs in the years since the Cosby Show, gave a gracious interview to Good Morning America thanking everyone for the support.
He also received a job offer (via Twitter) from Tyler Perry to join in on shooting the latest season of OWN’s The Haves and Have Nots. What started out as a humiliating situation, might end up being a boon for Owens’ career.
