Nearly 30 years after “Family Matters” went off the air in 1998, fans still want to know more details about why one of the characters vanished from the show without explanation.
Jaimee Foxworth played Judy Winslow for the first four seasons that aired from 1989 to 1993, but her role ended abruptly, creating a running joke among viewers that Judy went upstairs in the Winslow house and never came back down.
Her disappearance was also puzzling to some of the cast, including Darius McCrary, who played her big brother, Edward “Eddie” Winslow.
Back in 2022, Jo Marie Payton, 75, who starred as “Family Matters” matriarch Harriette Winslow, gave a plaintive account about how she felt about the showrunners getting rid of Judy midseason. She is quoted as saying, “You took away my baby, and when I asked you, ‘Why did you take away my baby girl?’ You said, ‘Nobody would notice.’”
But everyone did. McCrary, 49, provided behind-the-scenes information about his on-screen sibling during a recent interview when asked about Judy’s disappearance.
“It’s a trip, man, how none of us could do anything to save her,” he admitted during an interview with The Art Of Dialogue. The former child actor went on to explain on the April 7 episode, “And part of the reason was because of her mother.”
After offering praise for Foxworth’s mom, Gwyn Foxx, who served as her manager, McCrary offered criticism by comparing Jaimee’s mom to how his own mom negotiated on his behalf.
“You just got to be smart about it. Like I said, my mama was smart about how she moved, and she got it. My mama got everything she wanted,” McCrary stated.
The Hollywood veteran credited his mother for actor Shawn Harrison’s rise on “Family Matters,” where Harrison, 52, played Eddie’s dim-witted friend Waldo Faldo, moving from a recurring role in the first two seasons to a main character from seasons 4 through 7.
“Part of the reason why they had Waldo on the show is because my mom had low-key kind of got at the producers about Eddie Winslow not being dumb,” McCrary revealed. “So they brought in Waldo.”
He resumed, “They were able to write certain jokes for Shawn where he carried that burden ‘cause my mom didn’t want [me] to portray a young, dumb Black [kid], because she knew that that was going to resonate with an audience.”
McCrary’s admission about Judy sparked responses from internet users who grew up watching “Family Matters” in the 1990s and the younger generation that streams the classic sitcom.
An Instagram commenter suggested, “Her mother must’ve been volatile, and the producers didn’t wanna deal with that.” One fan wanted to see more of Judy, posting, “She was the comic relief of the show. Wished they would [have] kept her.”
“Some parents don’t know about tv world like her mom,” one person on Instagram expressed about McCrary’s comments. Another wrote, “Sad her mom ruined her career.”
Some folks leaned into the fact that Judy wasn’t a main character, while others say she still could have added more value to the show.
“Yea cuz wtf they could of had sooooo many storylines for her. For 1 she could have been there with Laura when them girls jacked her for her coat! They could have had them fight back! Man they did her wrong.”
Another said, “The show was on for 9 seasons. Jamie was on for seasons 1-4 and her character was never developed. She was never the main plot. There had to be more to it than it was her mom.” A fifth person blasted, “They wrote her out and then pretended like she was never there and that we never saw her!!”
On the topic of Foxworth losing her television job as a teenager, a commenter pointed out, “Crazy that Jaleel White said the exact same thing about Jamee Foxworth, her mom caused all the problems.”
While “Family Matters” was centered around the Winslows, their nerdy neighbor Steve Urkel, played by Jaleel White, became the breakout mainstream character. White, 49, also partially blamed Foxworth’s removal from the cast on her mother.
“There were a multitude of factors that went into her departure from the show that I blame all on her mother,” White said in an interview with “The Breakfast Club” in November 2024 when asked about Judy going missing on the program.
The “Growing Up Urkel” book author added, “But as a performer, they weren’t giving her storylines, and she wasn’t the best at delivering a joke. Sometimes they would give her material, and it would just fall flat, and if you fall flat in run-throughs, they’re going to rewrite you.”
White also hinted that Foxworth, and perhaps the people around her at the time, were annoyingly high-and-mighty, telling the radio hosts, “You can only mess up so much and be arrogant about it in a fur coat and a Mercedes, too, before somebody says, ‘Enough of this!”
Foxworth’s acting career stagnated after she left “Family Matters.” Her IMDb profile shows no acting credits after her final season, and when a brief turn in a hip-hop girl group called S.H.E. that she formed with her sisters Tyren Perry and Jania Perry flopped, by the early 2000s, she began working as an adult film actress.
The former child actress spent a few years in that industry before abandoning it, and today she co-hosts a podcast with her sisters called “The She Show.”
