Some of the cast of Family Matters, as you can imagine, were not happy about the decision
Not only had a member of their TV family been let go, a person that they had grown close to in real life, but she was a child. Darius McCrary, who played Judy’s brother, Eddie, took it well, telling Comedy Hype in 2019,“I just think that what happened to Jamie Foxworth, who is just a beautiful…multitalented individual…I think it was just a casualty of war, and all is fair in war… Whatever happened, whatever took place, it just didn’t work for the producers. In this game, it’s not about what works for you as a talent. It’s about what works for the producers.”
Someone who did not take it well was Jo Marie Payton, the acting veteran who played Judy’s mother, Harriette Winslow. In a 2022 interview with People, Payton didn’t hold back on what she thought about the situation, including what she said to the showrunners at the time: “I said, You guys need to tell me something that is not only creative, but also politically correct to straighten out this situation because there’s nowhere in the world a family … You gave me three kids, you took away my baby. If you had taken away my oldest child, we could have always come up with [various excuses in the episodes] that she was at the mall or with her friends. You took away my baby, and when I asked you, ‘Why did you take away my baby girl?,’ you said, ‘Nobody would notice.’ I said, ‘You know what, when we’re walking down the street, nobody’s gonna notice you because they’re not going to ask you , they’re going to ask me what happened to Judy.'”
Payton did hold on to the idea of a happy ending, thanks to a much hoped-for Family Matters reunion over the years. She said:”The very first episode has to be that [Judy] comes down those stairs. The worst feeling in the world for a parent is not to know where your child is, so if [a reboot were to happen], and Judy comes back, I will do Family Matters again!”
While it’s a nice fantasy to have, a reunion with Jaimee Foxworth, or at all, isn’t likely to happen. After Family Matters, Foxworth dropped out of acting, though later in her life she would star in adult films, which she also cited in The Root interview as a reason for her not being invited to the reunion photo shoot. That less-than-wholesome-TGIF past would probably keep her from being invited to any reunion series as well. It’s a shame. Family Matters was all about family. Even when it became the nonstop Urkel fest, it was still about his inclusion in the Winslow household and his love for them. To remove Judy Winslow from the series as if she had never been there betrayed what the series was all about, including its title. Family matters, but Judy Winslow did not.
