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Filmmaker Tyler Perry has offered former the Cosby Show star Geoffrey Owens a role in his new TV project after the actor was spotted working as a cashier in a New Jersey store.

Owens was bagging groceries at Trader Joe’s last month, prompting a customer to take to social media to express her shock at his new career path.

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“I used to watch The Cosby Show all the time; it was my favourite show. It was definitely him,” Karma Lawrence told U.K. newspaper The Daily Mail. “I would have thought after the Cosby Show he would maybe be doing something different. It was a shock to see him working there and looking the way he did. It made me feel really bad.”

Many celebrities, including Patricia Heaton, Donnie Wahlberg, and Terry Crews, came to Owens’ defence, saluting him for finding work in between acting jobs, and during an appearance on U.S. breakfast show Good Morning America on Tuesday, the actor revealed he initially felt “devastation” and “shame” over the negative press, but the response to the story has been amazing.