Malcolm-Jamal Warner’s mother says she has been cut off from his 9-year-old daughter, MacKenzie.
In court documents obtained by TMZ, Pamela Warner claims Malcolm’s widow, Tenisha Warner, “terminated her relationship with her granddaughter.”
The matriarch says she does not know what led to the estrangement but has no “ill-will” toward her daughter-in-law.
For the past few months, the two women have been at odds over the late actor’s estate. Tenisha says Malcolm never intended for her or MacKenzie to be left out of his family trust and was working to update his estate plan before his death.
“He was close to finalizing a new estate plan to replace the stale plan created in 1996 when he was 26 years old, 20 years before we met and well before we gave birth to our beautiful daughter,” Tenisha said in July.
She says her late husband also intended for her and MacKenzie to have his Los Angeles home, which Pamela sold before placing the proceeds into the trust.
Last month, Pamela and MacKenzie’s court-appointed representatives reached a proposed settlement over the child’s inheritance. If approved, MacKenzie would receive most of what remains in the trust and estate, along with money for college tuition.
Pamela expressed hope that “all parties will support the resolution.”
For Tenisha, the legal fight is about making sure she can provide for MacKenzie.
“I have been struggling to care for our daughter as a single mom and now as her sole provider,” she said after filing her lawsuit in July.
Malcolm died in July 2025 after drowning during a family vacation in Costa Rica. He was 54, and Tenisha and MacKenzie were with him at the time.
“All I could think about was my daughter and what I needed to do to continue to be her mother and be her only parent,” Tenisha told CBS Mornings in an interview shortly after his death.
