Viola Davis, Ryan Coogler honor Chadwick Boseman at star ceremony
Family and friends of late actor Chadwick Boseman honor his legacy with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Simone Ledward Boseman, the widow of actor Chadwick Boseman, has opened up about her battle with colon cancer nearly six years after his death.
In an interview on the Today show that aired on March 20, Boseman told host Craig Melvin that both she and her husband were shocked by the sudden diagnosis. The “Black Panther” actor passed away in 2020 at the age of 43.
“I didn’t know he was going through something until he had already been to the doctor twice. Everything seemed to happen very suddenly. It was a matter of a few weeks when he started feeling unwell,” she said.
“He was so young and he wasn’t even at the point where he was even considering getting a colonoscopy, so it was really troubling in that respect,” Boseman said of the colon cancer.
“We don’t know his family history yet,” she told Melvin, adding that despite his stage 3 diagnosis, they were “very confident” that he would “get through it.”
“For us, it was a difficult moment but he was going to get through it and be fine. And they would do the surgery and then the chemotherapy and he would be okay,” she said. “And the possibility that he might not be OK on the other side was never talked about.”
Exploring the idea that he wasn’t okay “felt like a betrayal of faith,” she said. “When I look back on those days, there are so many things I wish I had found a way to talk about.”
Boseman’s death came as a shock to many fans who had no idea he was ill. His wife told Today that keeping the fight private was intentional.
“Chad was not someone who wanted special treatment because people knew he was sick,” she said. “Work was what drove him, and he didn’t want his illness to interfere with his work. He didn’t want to be treated with kid gloves because people thought he wouldn’t be able to work and would slip under a falling cabinet or run across a field.”
Boseman said that while the passage of time has eased some of the grief, it remains a “painful” process.
“I think the best way to describe it is that the edges become less sharp,” she says. “There are still limits and there are still many painful moments, but I think it will become easier to find love in those moments. You will get used to carrying the weight of sadness, but it won’t go away.”
After starring in TV shows like “Lincoln Heights” and “Parsons Unknown,” Boseman broke out playing Jackie Robinson in 2013’s “42,” and a year later joined R&B superstar James Brown’s colorful wardrobe in “Get on Up.”
But his path to superstardom began in 2016, when he made a cameo appearance as T’Challa, the young prince (later king) and heroic warrior of Wakanda in Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War. Two years later, he headlined the blockbuster film Black Panther, which sparked a global movement in which black men, women, boys and girls locked arms with their hero in the “Wakanda Forever” salute.
Contributions: Andrea Mandel, Brian Truitt, Brian Alexander, USA TODAY
